Cantores Minores
The Choir of Boys and Young Men of Helsinki Cathedral
organ Markus Malmgren
conductor Hannu Norjanen
Missa a cappella by Einojuhani Rautavaara (1928-2016)
and music by Anton Bruckner, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Finnish composers
“What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self?” This simple, pressing question might be the key to understanding the meaninglessness of the pain, suffering, violence and grief man inflicts upon himself and his fellow men, or the menacing noise of time resonating in history since time immemorial. At the same time, this question also claims the inalienable value of the self, its irreducibility, the power of self-consciousness, which reveals itself in the arts as a quiet counterpoint to beauty. Sacred and especially liturgical music cherish a pure space where the soul can restore itself and retrace its own origins, where man’s heart meets the heart of God: no human power, no matter how subtle or totalitarian, will ever eradicate it.
