With the concert Sumer is icumen in, Una Cintiņa returns to the Fokker organ with a programme that celebrates spring and the coming summer. The title of the concert means ‘Summer is come’ and is based on a song in Middle English, specifically in the dialect of the Wessex region in England. It is a famous rota (canon), on the one hand because it represents the oldest known polyphonic music for six voices from the mid-thirteenth century and demonstrates a lively musical culture in the Middle Ages, and on the other hand because secular English-language music from that period is extremely rare. The text of the music describes the arrival of summer and the flourishing of nature. Although the identity of the composer is unknown today, it could be W. de Wycombe or the monk John of Fornsete from Reading Abbey, a ruined monastery in the English county of Berkshire.
Alongside improvisations on the original theme of Sumer is icumen in by Una Cintiņa, the programme includes several works, among them the premiere of a new piece by the Latvian composer Madara Pētersone. Also featured is a work by the Dutch composer Henk Badings, who composed a relatively large amount of 31-tone music between 1952 and 1981. His composition Archifonica from 1976 was actually written for an electronic 31-tone organ from 1970, namely the archifoon, which, like the 31-tone organ, is owned by the Huygens-Fokker Foundation. Una Cintiņa performs this work, which consists of three separate pieces, for the first time on the Fokker organ. Another work to be performed is Sumer is Icumen in by the well-known Danish composer Ole Buck, who was inspired for this organ composition by both medieval music and the sounds of nature. Ole Buck was born in Copenhagen, studied piano from the age of twelve and composed for orchestra at a young age. His breakthrough came at the age of twenty with a composition for soprano and chamber orchestra, after which he became a leading Danish composer and, in the late 1960s, ushered in a new movement in Danish music known as the ‘New Simplicity’.
In addition to these three works, various other compositions will be heard, all performed by organist Una Cintiņa, whose passionate playing and crystal-clear musical interpretations guarantee an exciting listening experience that should certainly be experienced live.