In a year characterised by severe economic and social restrictions, Fondazzjoni Paulus is presenting a scaled-down version of the Rabat Agape Festival and concert in celebration of the feasts of the Conversion and Shipwreck of St Paul. Given the current situation, this year’s concert is not going to be open to the public and will be broadcast on TVM2 on Wednesday at 9.30pm.

This year’s repertoire includes Steven Psaila’s Metanoia, Christopher Muscat’s Epitaphium and Joseph Vella’s Movement for String Quartet.

The concert will also honour the literary achievements of Oliver Friggieri, Mgr Pietru Pawl Saydon and national poet Dun Karm Psaila with literature written by these scholars and related to St Paul’s Shipwreck in Malta.

Mgr Pietru Pawl SaydonMgr Pietru Pawl Saydon

The chosen literature includes an article by Prof. Saydon published in 1960, a selection of sonnets written by Dun Karm Psaila and the lyrics of Friggieri’s hymn Inti fil-Bidu mir-Rabat Dawwaltna, written in 2008 to mark the Pauline Year.

Despite the ongoing pandemic, Fondazzjoni Paulus, through the coordination of its musical director Christopher Muscat and the collaboration of the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra, has strived to present another free concert to the public to continue promoting Malta’s cultural and literary treasures. Moreover, the foundation seeks to support the work of established and new composers. In order to celebrate Malta’s Pauline heritage, this concert was filmed in the iconic St Paul’s Grotto in Rabat.

Psaila’s work for string quartet is built on themes taken from his earlier work Katrin tal-Imdina. The reflective and spiritual nature of this work is typical of the composer’s writing and depicts the change in one’s way of life resulting from penitence or spiritual conversion − an all too obvious reference to the conversion of St Paul.

Oliver FriggieriOliver Friggieri

Epitaphium is the result of the composer’s disturbed emotions following the tragic events of September 11, 2001. The following day, while the world was still in shock and disbelief, the composer embarked on this emotionally-charged quartet which he dedicated to the victims of this historic tragedy.

This quartet is arguably one of the composer’s most daring works, with prolonged passages of dissonance (making use of quarter-tones practically throughout the work) and extremely slow tempi that contrast starkly to the fragmented aleatoric sections. This work contains the composer’s typical touch of contemplative spirituality, that inner path that he follows in search of the ultimate, immaterial and metaphysical truth.

Vella’s Movement for String Quartet is one of his earliest known major works. Composed in 1964 and catalogued as opus 3, this work is available on CD but was never performed in public. This is a delicate but profound work for string quartet, written in Vella’s typical atonal idiom and shifts seamlessly from one mood to another.

Fondazzjoni Paulus wishes to thank the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra, Bank of Valletta, Wignacourt Museum, Rabat local council and the Janatha Stubbs Foundation for their generous support.

The public is encouraged to follow the Fondazzjoni Paulus Facebook page and website (www.fondazzjonipaulus.org) for more information about this concert and other activities.

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