If there was one thing Alfred Schnittke was certainly not born with, it was religious

faith. His father was a German-speaking Jew, who had emigrated to the Soviet
Union in 1926, his mother a Catholic Volga German from Engels, where Alfred was
born in 1934. As committed Communists, both parents had no relationship with
religion, and the governments educational policy was, of course, atheistic. His
grandmother was the only one who practiced her religion, prayed daily and read the
Bible. This complete contrast with the rest of his surroundings left a decisive
impression on Alfred Schnittke: Although I havent prayed at all yet today, he once
stated in a conversation, it is still very important to have my entire life filled with
the ongoing and all-powerful sense that there is something greater than our own
existence and its content. But Schnittke could not associate this feeling with any
specific religion, and throughout his life he continued his quest for a religious
homeland. In 1982 he had himself baptized a Roman Catholic in Vienna, yet
retained his Russian father confessor; shortly before his death he was then received
into the Orthodox Church. The concept of salvation in the Soviet Union was vested
in the state, and so the artists were only able to explore questions of faith in secret
or in opposition to official pressure. This was also the case with Arvo Prt, for
example, who had become Russian Orthodox in the early 1970s and emigrated with
his family to Berlin in 1980. Schnittke remained until 1990. Sacred music was not
his primary concern, but even when he was in the Soviet
Konservatorium. Entstanden ist das Stck aber als Musikbeitrag zu dem Doku Union,
he did write some religious works: a Requiem very close to the Catholic liturgy, the
2nd Symphony, St. Florian, constructed in the form of a mass, the 4th Symphony, in
which Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Eastern Orthodox elements are interlayered.
One conspicuous aspect is that, on the one hand, Schnittke approaches the religious
content very freely and subjectively, while, on the other, he also orients his work on
solidly established liturgical forms. In this quest, a collection of texts from the era of
medival mysticism aroused Schnittkes special interest. Usually known in English
as The Book of Lamentations, it consists of 95 prayers by the Armenian monk St.
Gregory of Narek (9511003). From the perspective of a tortured heart, these
songs, partially linked with the Psalms, seek solace and hope from God. For the
middle ages it is amazing how powerfully an I here articulates, both emotionally
and intellectually. The first text Schnittke selected praises God under the sign of
cosmic totality. With a grand rhetorical gesture, a kind of Supreme Psalm, the
author steps forward and then surprisingly identifies his invalid words as a
modest prayer This tension between the awareness of the self and humility,
between subjective sensitivity and objective religious teaching gives Gregorys
Songs of Lamentation a very modern appearance. They continue to exist as a
prayer book in Armenia to this day. This collection also offered Schnittke a chance to
create a sacred choral work on a grand scale: the Concerto for Choir, completed in
1985. It starts with an open fifth, as if emerging from the solemn darkness of an
ancient church. Associations with Orthodox choral singing intrude. But then the
female voices start to move, melodically and expressively. An archaic polyphony
combines with the church style of the late romantic era in Russia. A frequently
repeated
figure in thirds simulates the ringing of bells. But all these traditional elements are
often transferred by the dissonant overlaid chords into a more modern perspective.
Pure triads then glow all the brighter into view. The strong contrasts in Gregorys
work bring about an equally tension and contrast-rich music. An interior event, a
kind of drama of faith, weaves its way through the entire work just as Schnittke
might have experienced it. The 2nd movement confronts an almost continuously
repeated Alleluia with the emotional content of the songs, where every verse is
full to the brim with black sorrow. A lamenting figure circles, alien and hopeless, in
the darkness of a c minor chord. After the breakthrough into the light of a D major
chord the Alleluia then assumes the position of the rotating figure. The sound of
lamentation and cries of joy reveal themselves to be musically identical. Harmony,
however, does not enter into the picture. After reaching its pinnacle, in which the
chorus spreads out into 17 rejoicing voices, the music begins to fall silent, and the
Alleluia fades away like monotone lament in the stillness. A darkly mumbled
psalmody in the 3rd movement, initiates another circular trance-like motion. Under
the threat of sin, doubt and misdeeds, all that remains is a plea for salvation.
Entwined by beautiful O vowels, the movement first gains power and security. But
in the second half, the voices, provoked by mortal fear, depravity and insanity,
wander aimlessly in extremely dissonant fields of sound. With this, the dramatic
turning point of the work has been reached. Finally, tightly forged chords resound,
above which the hurricane of unbelief harmlessly blows away. The only function
remaining for the 4th movement is to serve as an epilogue, a contemplative
resonance in the calm after the storm. The bright D major key remains unclouded,
the
Union, he did write some religious works: a Requiem very close to the Catholic
liturgy, the 2nd Symphony, St. Florian, constructed in the form of a mass, the 4th
Symphony, in which Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Eastern Orthodox elements are
interlayered. One conspicuous aspect is that, on the one hand, Schnittke
approaches the religious content very freely and subjectively, while, on the other,
he also orients his work on solidly established liturgical forms. In this quest, a
collection of texts from the era of medival mysticism aroused Schnittkes special
interest. Usually known in English as The Book of Lamentations, it consists of 95
prayers by the Armenian monk St. Gregory of Narek (9511003). From the
perspective of a tortured heart, these songs, partially linked with the Psalms, seek
solace and hope from God. For the middle ages it is amazing how powerfully an I
here articulates, both emotionally and intellectually. The first text Schnittke selected
praises God under the sign of cosmic totality. With a grand rhetorical gesture, a kind
of Supreme Psalm, the author steps forward and then surprisingly identifies his
invalid words as a modest prayer This tension between the awareness of the
self and humility, between subjective sensitivity and objective religious teaching
gives Gregorys Songs of Lamentation a very modern appearance. They continue to
exist as a prayer book in Armenia to this day. This collection also offered Schnittke a
chance to create a sacred choral work on a grand scale: the Concerto for Choir,
completed in 1985. It starts with an open fifth, as if emerging from the solemn
darkness of an ancient church. Associations with Orthodox choral singing intrude.
But then the female voices start to move, melodically and expressively. An archaic
polyphony combines with the church style of the late romantic era in Russia. A
frequently repeated
groups around them in changing sound surfaces. Voices of Nature received its world
premire in the spring of 1975 at the Moscow Conservatory. The piece, however,
was written as a musical contribution to the documentary film And Yet I Still Believe
by the Russian director Mikhail Romm. After images of war and destruction, the
music is heard under a dream sequence of beautiful nature shots. This dualistic
world view, split between God and evil, essentially marks Schnittkes religious
thinking, just as it is reflected in the choral concerto. A highly unusual text forms the
basis for Arvo Prts cantata Dopo la vittoria: it is an article in a church music
lexicon in which the legendary story of the creation of the Te Deum is told. The
piece was written in 1997 on commission from the city of Milan to commemorate
the 1600th death anniversary of St. Ambrose, who was Bishop of Milan from 374 to
397 A.D. Prt divides up the text into seven sections, which he sets in the widest
variety of compositional techniques. This way, from the first words, divided into
syllables, he constructs a rhythmic-intervallic pattern, for Ambroses evocation of
the trinity, by contrast, he selects a Gregorian tone and ancient sound parallels.
Each section additionally brings an intensification until it reaches Ambroses and
Augustines mutual confession of faith, which forms the climax of the cantata. Jrg
Handstein Translation: Donald Arthur
simplicity of the prayer is free of stylistic refractions. As in the 2nd movement, the
Amen fades away quite softly, but this time it is like a liberating exhalation in the
certainty of faith. The Concerto for Choir was given its world premire on June 9th,
1986 in Moscow, by the State Chamber Orchestra of the U.S.S.R. under the direction
of Valery Polyansky. We also have him to thank for one of Schnittkes few smaller
works. In 1983, Polyansky asked Schnittke to write a work for his chorus. At that
time, Schnittke was already occupying his attentions with the poems of St. Gregory
of Narek, however for this commission he spontaneously selected (according to
Polyansky he jumped out of bed in the middle of the night to commit the work to
paper) a text basis in stark contrast to the monks poems. Instead of that artistically
crafted, highly subjective poetry, he chose totally simple, suprapersonal prayers
from the everyday life of the Orthodox Church. In humility, so to speak, the
individual artistic demand of this musical setting assumes a position behind the
text. Schnittke stylizes old Russian church pieces with the most uncomplicated
setting technique and a uniform, somewhat dry harmonic structure. Nevertheless, in
his Three Sacred Hymns, he succeeded in creating highly expressive and timeless
miniatures for a cappella choir. Words reveal religious beliefs, words mediate
between God and the believers. In this sense, sacred music is almost always word-
related. Schnittkes wordless Voices of Nature seems to fall into another category.
But a pantheistic concept of God definitely resonates in the mysteriously floating
sound of this work. The clear architecture reinforces this impression: the framework
tones slowly stride through the octave while the ten female voices form
groups around them in changing sound surfaces. Voices of Nature received its world
premire in the spring of 1975 at the Moscow Conservatory. The piece, however,
was written as a musical contribution to the documentary film And Yet I Still Believe
by the Russian director Mikhail Romm. After images of war and destruction, the
music is heard under a dream sequence of beautiful nature shots. This dualistic
world view, split between God and evil, essentially marks Schnittkes religious
thinking, just as it is reflected in the choral concerto. A highly unusual text forms the
basis for Arvo Prts cantata Dopo la vittoria: it is an article in a church music
lexicon in which the legendary story of the creation of the Te Deum is told. The
piece was written in 1997 on commission from the city of Milan to commemorate
the 1600th death anniversary of St. Ambrose, who was Bishop of Milan from 374 to
397 A.D. Prt divides up the text into seven sections, which he sets in the widest
variety of compositional techniques. This way, from the first words, divided into
syllables, he constructs a rhythmic-intervallic pattern, for Ambroses evocation of
the trinity, by contrast, he selects a Gregorian tone and ancient sound parallels.
Each section additionally brings an intensification until it reaches Ambroses and
Augustines mutual confession of faith, which forms the climax of the cantata. Jrg
Handstein Translation: Donald Arthur

2. Sitting between two stools is an uncomfortable experience.

In the case of artists, though, it is also a
privilege that can hardly be overestimated. For Alfred
Schnittke, the challenge of having to find his place
somewhere in a national, religious and cultural no
mans land began on the day of his birth. Having been
born to a Catholic schoolteacher mother and a
Jewish journalist father of German descent in Engels,
the capital of the former Volga German Soviet
Republic, in 1934, he was homeless right from the start.
Vienna and Moscow were the two fundamentally
opposed focal points of his musical training. They
brought the young composer into contact with the ideas
of the circle around ArnoldSchoenberg, as well as with
the music of Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Shostakovich
in other words, with influences as contrary as could
be imagined, which had a more or less powerful
impact on his musical vocabulary for some time to
come. The decisive moment of liberation came at the
end of the 1960s, with the Second Violin Sonata,
when a fiercely determined Schnittke threw all dogmas
overboard with the aim of committing himself henceforth
to complete openness in matters of style. At that
time I decided to get out of the already
overcrowdedtrain, he observed in retrospect. So I
 looked around for a way to give my music a
richer associative content. I tried to abandon myself
to my feelings, like the Romantics, and also tried to
take up literary and visual models. This deeply
subjective attitude inevitably turned him into a
maverick who broke ranks with the monotonous march to the
tune of restrictive Soviet cultural diktats, and at last
got him a hearing in the West which in turn
caused some suspicion among the chief ideologists of
the Kremlin and his colleagues in the state-run Union
of Soviet Composers. Schnittkes new attitude, as complex
and contradictory as his nature itself, was that of
a creative restorer. Henceforth he drew on the
seemingly unlimited wealth of material provided by
music history, combining seemingly incompatibleelements,
seeking intersectionsand downright antagonisms, thereby
generating new and ambiguous connotations. But, unlike the
archaeologist who aims to reconstruct the past with
meticulous precision from a stock of potsherds, Schnittke
is concerned with the friction between the various
chronological layers of music. Thus his art sometimes
resembles a distorting mirror of eras, whosebroken
images have much to tell about underlying truths but,
above all, about freedom of personality, emancipated from
all state tutelage. Despite all the difficulties and
dangers inherent in polystylism, its unquestionable merits
are obvious, Schnittke stated. These consist in
an expansion of musical means of expression, a
greater ease in integrating the high and low styles,the
banal and the refined, in short, into an all-
embracing universe and a stylistic democratisation. An
approach that was by no means risk-free, years before
glasnost and perestroika. It was in 1974, while working
on his Requiem, that Schnittke began to deal in depth
with spiritual traditions, initially the Roman Catholic,
then, increasingly, the Russian Orthodox Church. On the
basis of the language of my prayers and the
language of my perceptions, I do not belong to
the German world, but to the Russian. The whole
spiritual aspect of my life is pervaded by the
Russian language, he admitted some time later, and even
though he had been a professing Catholic since 1982,
he added expressly, with regard to his religious
standpoint: I respect the Orthodox Church even
more than the Catholic. The Penitential Psalms for mixed choir
a cappella, which stylistically might be seen as a substrate
of the Concerto for Choir he had composed three years
 previously on texts from the Book of Lamentations by the
medieval Armenian mystic Gregory of Narek,were
written in 1988 to commemorate the millennium of
the Christianisation of Russia, which commenced with the
baptism of Grand Prince Vladimir in what was then
Kievan Rus. On this occasion the literary source
of the work was a selection of poems for Lent
from the pen of one or more anonymous monks, which
Schnittke had discovered in an anthology of Old
Russian texts from the second half of the sixteenth
century, published in Moscow in 1986. The key to
understanding the entire cycle is contained in the sixth
verse of the work. This deals with the fundamental motif of
original sin and refers to the story of the treacherous
murder of Vladimirs sons Boris and Gleb, later canonised
and revered as martyrs, which their older half-brother
Svyatopolk perpetrated in 1015 in the course of
bloody conflicts over the succession. The remaining pieces
are entwined around this central section, like a
band of mourning crape, a wreath of prayer-like
paraliturgical verses of the kind that had their
heyday in the reign of Ivan the Terrible. Bitter lines
concerning past wrongs and human sinfulness, which are
marked by sorrow, lamentation, the willingness to
repent and the hope of forgiveness. Common to all
of them is a very private religious attitude, wholly
internalised, but at the same time an undercurrentof
admonition, which must certainly have possessed a special
symbolic significance for Schnittke, the convinced advocate
of freedom, on the eve of the great political
upheavals in the Soviet Union.Yet his setting expresses
something quite different from revolutionary heroics.
Symptomatic of the bare, almost simplistic sound
aesthetic, which refers to the archaic
tradition of Old Russian church music, is its
predominantly unadorned, litanic style of writing: syllabic
text distribution, declamation closely modelled on the
natural rhythm of spoken language, stepwise
melodies in intervals of a semitone or a whole
tone, drone-like pedal points, frequent parallel movement
of the voices alternating with subtle canonic techniques, which
create an impression of symbiotically interrelated melodic
lines perpetually circling around each other. Moments of
emotional exuberance, however, are introduced extremely
sparingly, rarely disturbing the gentle, intimate flow of
the music. They occur, on the one hand, in occasional
moments of revolt when dissonant intensifications of the
vocal texture condense into cluster-like agglomerate chords,
but above all at the end of the individual movements,
when the prayers abandon the tone of lamentation and
lead into a direct address to God. Here, as the gaze
rises above the earthly horizon, the harmonic writing
blossoms, acknowledges its tonal roots and shimmers in
nuances of colour at once unfathomable and magical
in their transcendence. In addition to these compositional
techniques that focus entirely on the primacy of the
word and its message, and which not by chance
recall the vividlypictorial style of writing found in
Heinrich Schtz, the score reveals a second,
deeper level of sound and meaning, at first carefully
hidden: a speechless humming and murmuring, where
possible sung a bocca chiusa, with the mouthclosed. At
the beginning of the piece, it seemsto emerge
literally from nothing, like an instrumental grounding that
generates additional space,and continues to exist subliminally
in the following movements as the germ of a new
thought, initially impossible to grasp, which almost
imperceptibly embeds itself in the subconscious. Only
in the completely textless final section will it
realise its full potential and lead into a
dematerialised sphere of perfect spiritual freedom
that no longerhas need of words. Far more than an
epilogue, but rather a meditative epode in vocalises, this
twelfth section reveals the true intention of the
work, which attempts to show a viable way out of the
maze of sorrow and lamentation. To underline this in
a musically manifest way, Schnittke invokes a great
colleague and comrde-in-arms, certainly not by chance:
carefully embroidered like a monogram and omnipresent right
up to the unstable D major chord of the final
diminuendo, the four-note motif B-A-C-H (B flat-A-C-B
natural) can be identified in the tenor part. It
graphically indicates to whom we owe the finely chiselled
contrapuntal filigree of this music, the miraculous
balance of its architecture, but not least also its
consistent striving for artistic independence. Schnittkes
Penitential Psalms, the secretive magnum opus of his
sacred music, was first performed on Boxing Day
1988, about eight months after the completion of the work
of composition, in the concert hall of Moscow
University, by the USSR State Chamber Choir under the
direction of Valery Polyansky. The latter had already been
associated with the genesis of the Concerto for Choir and
 the Three Sacred Hymns. In the autumn of 1983, at
the Moscow premiere of the Faust Cantata Seid
nchtern und wachet, Polyansky had asked the composer to write
a new a cappella piece for his ensemble, a request
he initially declined. It was only after repeated urging
that Schnittke relented, on the occasion of the
December Nightsin Moscows Pushkin Museum; the very
next day after this renewed plea, he thrust into the
surprised conductors hand the manuscript of three choral
movements setting prayers used in Russian Orthodox
devotions not without berating him, tongue-in-cheek,
as a dreadful fellow for his tenacity. Although
committed to paper overnight, so to speak, these short
piecesare not to be regarded as mere occasional
compositions born of embarrassment. The first is a
bichoral Hail, Mary, which derives its concentrated
inwardness from the strict antiphonal dialogue between the
two choirs. The ensuing prayer to Jesus begins
softly in unison, suddenly rising to an emphatic eight-
part fortissimo, releasing energies that seem still to resonate
in the concluding Our Father, in which Schnittke pushes
the terrain of the tonal area of E flat to its
limits in constantly varied vocal combinations. In comparison
with the Penitential Psalms, the Three Sacred Hymns are
unquestionably more strongly rootedin the Romantic
tradition of Russian sacred music, as it can
be tracedfrom the Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff settings
of the All-Night Vigil to Stravinskys Ave Maria and Pater
Noster. But even these miniatures, in a way typical of
this important ambassador of a non-dogmatic modernity
who alas fell silent far too early, show the significance of
the old in the new and the new in the old alike.
Roman Hinke Translation
3. Personal Addresses to God the Father and the Mother of God This, then, is how
you should pray: Our Father who art in heaven / Hallowed be Thy name. Matthew
6:9 The Lords Prayer is the most universal prayer in Christianity, prayed by
believers of all denominations. According to the New Testament, it is directly
ascribed to Jesus Christ, who taught it to his disciples. In proportion to
7
the importance of this prayer, there are not that many musical settings of it
compared to other liturgical texts. The respect for the more or less direct speech of
God surely plays a role here, says Alois Glaner, director of the Salzburg Bach
Choir. The Lords Prayer is a very personal prayer, an address to God the Father. In
addition, it occupies a central position in the liturgy. For this reason, it has not been
set to music so often for the people, the religious community. When it has, it has
nearly always been for a cappella choir. There have been, of course, settings of
the prayer written over the course of several epochs and cultures, from the
Renaissance to the present day, in Latin, Italian, German and Slavic languages. The
prayers wide distribution is thus reflected in this music. Alois Glaner and the
Salzburg Bach Choir thus roam through the centuries with their selection of settings
of the Lords Prayer. They wish to introduce a variety of textual and stylistic
components. In so doing, the lexical aspect is not so important; instead we intend it
to be a complete listening experience. Almost like a liturgy. In this liturgy,
alongside the settings of the Lords Prayer, Glaner has also included compositions
using Marian texts for the present
CD, in which one recognises a more subjective, intimate approach in the setting of
prayers. It also appears to be of interest to him how composers as in the case of
Giuseppe Verdi, for instance differentiate between setting the Lords Prayer and
one to the Virgin Mary. Verdi, who did not have any particular relationship to the
Catholic Church, did not use Latin, but an Italian text of the Lords Prayer based on a
14thcentury poem by Antonio Beccari da Ferrara. The Italian language made it
possible for him to draw still closer to the people, according to Glaner. Verdis
Padre nostro for four-part mixed choir is contrasted with his Laudi alla Vergine Maria
for four womens voices from the Quattro pezzi sacri. His return to the sonic ideal of
the Renaissance and Palestrina becomes readily apparent here, although the
harmonic language is definitely anchored in the 19th century. Very soon after the
premiere performance with solo voices, it was performed by a full choir for the first
time in Vienna; this version became the customary practice. At the beginning of the
musical cycle of prayers on this CD is a Latin Pater Noster by Jacobus Gallus, who
was active in Austrian courts and monasteries during the Renaissance.
8
His setting is a canonic form of the prayer with an eight-part structure forming a
double choir, in which texts are illuminated with and against each other. Here one
can also hear the influence of the polychoral music from Venice that was emerging
at this time. Heinrich Schtz actually studied with Gabrieli in Venice. His
composition, a part of the Twelve Sacred Songs is for Glaner the most magnificent
example of a German setting of the Lords Prayer from that period. The very
textorientated, subjective treatment, based on the affects intrinsic to music, is
notably influenced by Monteverdi and his music. The song to Mary written around
1900 by the British composer Gustav Holst, however, leads back to Italy and the
period of Monteverdi. Holst uses the archaic, rhetorical basic form of the double
choir: thesis, antithesis, synthesis, as Glaner describes this Ave Maria set in the
rhythms of six-four time, like a lullaby a musical return to the mother figure
holding the infant Jesus in her arms. The song of Mary by Francis Poulenc, that
fascinatingly colourful French composer, extends still further back into the past. In
his Salve Regina one can hear the influences of Gregorian
chant, but also, according to Glaner, a completely new way of treating language,
which he brings into a flowing characteristic style, thus focussing on the meditative
components. A return or reconsideration can also be sensed in the Pater Noster II
of Franz Liszt, who decided to become an abb in his old age. The piece sounds as if
it had been composed during the 17th century, in a reduction, leaving hardly
anything to be desired, Glaner states, but there arises, nonetheless, a mystical,
magical mood. In Anton Bruckners motets, too, it is striking that a maximum of
expression and intimacy can be achieved with relatively restricted means. His Ave
Maria is an enigma: the harmonic language becomes an interpretation of the
wondrous. For Glaner, the opening of the Ave Maria is one of the most
inexplicable phenomena in all music, appearing out of oblivion in this case. The
three quaver upbeat does not seem spectacular, but there is incredible power within
it. It also makes the highest demands on the singers to capture this salutatory Ave
Maria together and with sensitivity. The Volga-German composer Alfred Schnittke
refers directly to Bruckner in his
9
St Florian Symphony. He grew up in a Slavic culture; after his emigration from the
communist Soviet Union he was baptised as a Catholic in Vienna. His Vaterunser
(The Lords Prayer), however, is one of the three hymns to Russian Orthodox texts,
composed in an almost recitative structure created out of the harmonies. Herwig
Reiter is a professor of choral conducting in Vienna and is also active as a recording
producer, as on this CD. His Vaterunser makes use of an especially chordal musical
language, at times including elements of bitonality. Originally composed for
womens choir, Glaner performs it with a mens choir on this CD. He was able to
convince the composer with this version, who found this altered scoring
wonderful. The most extensive Lords Prayer setting on this CD recording is by
the Austrian composer Wolfram Wagner, who knows the instrument choir
perfectly well, since he is himself a singer and knows the means with which effects
can be created. He creates a long arc, as Glaner describes the work: It begins
with the Gregorian chant, developing slowly, at first determined by the harmonies,
then ever more rhythmically dissolved. Individual words are emphasised, according
to the affects intrinsic to music, then
intensified into an urgent plea. Wagner splits up the words into many repetitions,
creating the effect of a mantra. The longest Lords Prayer on this CD is contrasted
by the shortest, Notre Pre, the last work completed by the Parisian organist and
composer Maurice Durufl. It consists of just a few chords and is nonetheless for
Glaner inspired by an enormous power. An intimately spoken prayer full of
intensity. One composer from whom one would not normally expect such ardency
is Edvard Grieg. He adopted a very liberal attitude, composing a simple and
colourful, eight-part song to Mary. With Grieg, too, we observe the phenomenon to
the words of the prayer themselves determining the form and sound of the
composition, Glaner surmises. Benjamin Britten composed his famous Hymn to
the Virgin when he was just 16 years old. One can only be astounded and think
that he couldnt have learned that it must have come to him through other
channels. Glaner is referring here to Brittens background in the English choral
tradition in which he grew up, where hymns were sung as liturgy and prayers each
day in the Cathedral schools. This wonderful, sacred composition is followed by an
atmospheric folk song from Lower Austria, bringing this selection to a close: a free
adaptation in several verses of the Lords Prayer as it is sung today in this region
during pilgrimages. This CD was recorded in a relatively modern church in Abersee
in the Salzkammergut region. It has wooden ceilings and walls on the inside creating
a very special acoustic quality. The recordings were made during the month of May.
When the technical cutting was undertaken in early autumn, one could hear soft
birdsong from outside during the singing, almost the entire time, hardly noticeable.
At first we thought we had to cut out the birdsong, but then we decided to leave it
in, Glaner says. The heavenly singers, after all, are part of this music. Since the
Salzburg Bach Choirs beginnings in 1984 they have become a major highlight of
music life in Salzburg. This choir is one of the leading vocal ensembles in Austria
and has become an internationally sought-after vocal ensemble notable for its high
degree of flexibility in terms not only of the number of its performers but also its
overall sound. The choir is a regular guest at the world-renowned Salzburg Festival
and they are regularly performing on many other international stages as well. Since
2003, it has been directed by Alois Glaner. The choirs repertoire covers every
period from the Renaissance to the great baroque Oratorios, to the Classic and
Romantic periods. It includes as well works by 20th and 21st century composers
such as Honegger, Webern, Prt, Britten, Brubeck and Rihm. For this period of music
they have become known as a very competent ensemble, performing many world
premieres of contemporary pieces. The Salzburg Bach Choir has been a regular
feature of the citys big festivals for three decades.
12
Laby rinth
Der Salzburger Bachchor whrend der Aufnahmen zu dieser CD im Mai 2014,
Abersee am Wolfgangsee.
The Salzburg Bach Choir during the recording of this CD in May 2014, Abersee am
Wolfgangsee.
13
As part of the International Mozart Week the choir has worked successfully with the
Musiciens du Louvre under Mark Minkowski for several years now. Appearances at
the Salzburg Festival included performances with the Vienna Philharmonic, the
Mozarteum Orchestra, the Camerata Salzburg, the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra and
RSO Vienna with conductors such as Riccardo Muti, Hans Graf, Ivor Bolton, Ingo
Metzmacher, Sir Roger Norrington, Yannick Nzt-Sguin and Vladimir Fedoseyev.
Staged performances have included Mozarts Idomeneo in 2006, Handels Theodora
in 2009, and Peter von Winters Das Laby rinth the second part of Die Zauberflte
in 2012. DVDs from these productions are available. In 2013, the Salzburg Bach
Choir appeared in Mozarts Lucio Silla and Abduction, Birtwistles opera Gawain, and
in Walter Braunfels Jeanne dArc, as well as in the world premiere of Wimbergers
Passion des Giordano Bruno. International tours have taken the choir to Germany,
France, Italy, Greece, Romania, the Netherlands, Turkey and Spain. Many popular
CDs have been produced together with the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg,
performing under the direction of their principal conductor, Ivor Bolton; including
Michael
Haydns Requiem, Mozarts Davide penitente, Joseph Haydns Seasons and Creation,
Berlioz LEnfance du Christ and Louis Spohrs Last Judgement. In their own
productions, the Salzburg Bach Choir presents itself as an outstanding a cappella
ensemble that presents rare masterpieces of music on the highest art level.