Gnostic music

AT THE MET: Johann Johannsson’s ‘Drone Mass’ Bridges Ancient and Modern at Temple of Dendur (Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim NYT).

In program notes for the Met performance, Mr. Johannsson acknowledges the new resonance that the term has gained recently as public fascination — and anxiety — with the airborne drone has grown. The text of his Mass is that of an ancient Egyptian Coptic hymn that consists of only free-floating vowels. “Putting these Gnostic texts in the context of the Temple of Dendur, with the title ‘Drone Mass,’ creates some kind of poetic resonance, which I can’t quite explain, either,” he said in an interview.

HT Sachyn Mital's review notice of the performance at PopMatters: Jóhann Jóhannsson - "Drone Mass" Met Museum World Premiere, which quotes the Met with the additional information that "'Drone Mass' [is] a contemporary oratorio which fuses the sounds of string quartet, electronics, and vocals, and uses texts based on the Coptic Gospel of the Egyptians."