‘Dissident for life’ Alexander Ogorodnikov

 

Oratorio



Music CD

1.Smet intro 2:15Listen to track 1
2.Smet gitaar + fluit 2:31Listen to track 2
3.Russian lyric 1 3:16Listen to track 3
4.KGB 2:26Listen to track 4
5.Log 4:11Listen to track 5
6.Smet gitaar solo 1:15Listen to track 6
7.Polna jevo stezy’a 2:19Listen to track 7
8.Russian lyric 3 2:00Listen to track 8
9.Smert outro Braambos 1:10Listen to track 9

Performers
Jan Maqthé: bas en cello
Hilde Coppé: sopraan
Ilse Vromans: fluiten
Johan Vanneste: hoorn
Michel Vangheluwe: piano en bas

 

Song for Ogorodnikov

The Big Lie slowly draws the mask aside:
the secret guards of power make their threats
and guilty priests all whisper their regrets.
The God of life has nowhere to abide.

Death haunts the Gulag, taking for his prize
the ones whom pain has beaten down and broken.
But he who fights off grief, by Life awoken:
“Where is your victory, O Death?” he cries.

And floating there on power’s watery gloom
We see them shining: islands of pure light,
For suffering men, a refuge in their night.
The God of life has come to make his home.

Refrain

He lives for all his brothers,
he speaks for all the others.
Protests of truth and honor,
a whole life long.

Patrick Lateur