The programme is clearly thematically oriented. The thematical material links the theme of heights (“the sky”) and the Earth as evident from the title From heights to the Earth. Apart from that, there is a presence of dualism of light and darkness with a significant connection between sacred and secular repertoire. Next to the six Gregorian chants in this thesis, we are focusing on two different approaches to Swedish protestant hymns (a unison folk melody after Katarina Utas and an a cappella piece for mixed choir by Swedish composer Karin Rehnqvist) and a lyrical suite by another Swedish composer, Lars–Erik Larsson. From sparse unison singing, we continue with a four-part mixed choir a cappella piece and conclude with a big ensemble: a narrator, a soprano and baritone solo, a mixed choir and an orchestra. In the master’s thesis, the analyses of the whole concert programme are included together with the historical analyses, the presentations of composers and the translations of the texts. The Gregorian chant analyses, mainly focused on the meaning of the neumes, are done phrase by phrase. In the analyses, instead of the original translation, which is given in the chapter “Translation of the text”, we would rather use a literal translation of the separate words or phrases. All analyses include visual examples of sections of Gregorian chants to help with the understanding of their important elements. The first Swedish protestant hymn, “Nu är en dag framliden”, is also analysed phrase by phrase regarding its unison melody structure. In opposition, the rest of the programme is analysed section by section (e.g.: A, B, …) from structural, symbolical, melodical and rhythmical aspects and is complemented with visual material. At the beginning of every analysis, a systematically structured table of the main characteristics of the composition (e.g.: tonality, structure, …), explained further on, is provided
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