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FULL Psalm 130 ‘Du fond de l’abîme’ (Boulanger) Madrid 2025 Ekaterina Antipova
Information on the Performance
- Work Title: Psalm 130 ‘Du fond de l’abîme’
- Composer: Boulanger Lili
- Libretto: from the Bible
- Venue & Opera Company: Teatro Monumental, Madrid Spain
- Recorded: October 9 & 10, 2025
- Type: Concert Live
- Singers: Ekaterina Antipova
- Conductor: Christoph König
- Orchestra: Orquesta Sinfónica RTVE
- Chorus: Coro RTVE
- Chorus Master: Marc Korovitch
- Stage Director:
- Costume Designer:
Information about the Recording
- Format: DVD
- Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
- Subtitles: nosubs
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE
The RTVE Symphony Orchestra and Choir began their 2025/2026 subscription season under the baton of German maestro Christoph König, principal conductor of the RTVE Symphony Orchestra, with a program that combines spiritual intensity and symphonic grandeur.
In the first part of the concert, the audience enjoyed Psalm 130, “Du fond de l’abîme,” by Lili Boulanger, a 20th-century French composer. Mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Antipova was the soloist, performing this work imbued with profound drama and lyricism.
I quote the review published by Scherzo:
“An angel! At the age of six, she had her first encounter with death when her father passed away. The pain marked her, but it also helped her mature and shape her life experience through thoughts of overwhelming depth for such a delicate and fragile child.” At sixteen, she embarked on the irreversible path to composition, which culminated in the Prix de Rome, awarded for the first time to a woman in 1913. Lili Boulanger was nineteen and had barely five years left to live: she died at twenty-four in 1918. Seven years earlier, in 1911, Gustav Mahler, the composer who revolutionized the world of the symphony, died at fifty. Both died young—Lili far too young—and both had death very much present in their lives; both, a Frenchwoman and a Bohemian, used music as a means of expression and salvation from their destinies.
And, precisely, the RTVE Symphony Orchestra and Choir (OCRTVE), conducted by Maestro Christoph König, opened its In Crescendo season last Thursday with a work by each of them: Boulanger’s Psalm 130 “From the Depths of the Abyss” and Mahler’s Fifth Symphony; the former rarely performed; The second, very well-known.
Thursday’s concert began with Psalm 130, a work for choir, mezzo-soprano, and orchestra, lasting just under half an hour, which demonstrates the profound religiosity of Lili Boulanger, who finished writing it in 1917. Maestro König, facing his final season as principal conductor of the RTVE Orchestra, conducted it without a baton, with his bare hands, as if he wanted to knead the sound to create a sacred bread to offer the audience at the Teatro Monumental. He had good ingredients: the flour of the orchestra, the water of the choir, and the salt of mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Antipova. And the bread turned out perfectly. From that beginning with deep, somber notes from the organ and tuba emerging from the depths of the abyss to the solemn finale, the performance of Lili Boulanger’s score was outstanding.
The choir had moments that send shivers down the spine of the listener. The performances of Ekaterina Antipova were particularly noteworthy; her voice, like a powerful torrent filling the entire venue, resonated with solemnity, emotion, and expressiveness. The audience responded with thunderous applause for the RTVE Orchestra’s performance. The choir director, the Frenchman Marc Korovitch, came out to take his bow, prompting even more enthusiastic applause for the choir members.