Charlotte Seither’s Oculi for women’s voices are a musical reflection on covetousness. “The eyes are the window which lead us to external temptation and to covetousness. What we see, we also want to possess.” The Guardini Foundation’s “Decalogue” is devoted to the Ten Commandments in a cycle which has extended over several years. For its conclusion, Charlotte Seither has composed a commission on the Tenth Commandment. All of us are preoccupied with wanting things every day – possessions, power, positions, attention, likes: the commandment is so topical, according to Seither, “because it inspires us to reflect on what is necessary, what I actually really need”. She reads the Hebrew text of the commandments precisely, which contain no imperatives: Thou shalt not covet, kill, steal, if you are in God. What interests Seither is the act of enlightenment, which is aimed at the freedom of people, at their riches, when they leave covetousness behind them. She is interested in today’s stances and perspectives on the text. In Oculi the composer sets related poetry by Martin Luther, Matthias Claudius and Angelus Silesius. Her four-part composition comprises three movements for women’s choir and a mixed choir. The choral movements dematerialize the text in a declamation which unfolds in many ways: the words are dissolved into sound pictures, sound complexes, lines, which waft around the listeners and bring them to complation: a sound world apart from the visible.

MLM
(Translation: Elizabeth Robinson)
(from [t]akte 2/2017)