in croce

Nystedt: Stabat Mater op. 111 for choir & cello
B. Hummel: "Abschied" for violoncello solo
Pärt: Nunc dimittis for choir
Gubaidulina: Prelude No. 5
Barber: Agnus Dei after the Adagio
Kancheli: "After Crying" for violoncello solo
Tavener: "Svyati" for choir & cello

Julius Berger (violoncello)
"Kamer..." Youth Choir,
Maris Sirmais

Recording 2007

Artists have always thought about how they can "emotionally translate" rather abstract trains of thought to their fellow human beings, how they can make them understandable. The Norwegian composer Knut Nystedt, for example, is one of the contemporary composers who have explored this theme. His "Stabat Mater" op. 111 is inspired on the one hand by old church music such as Gregorian chant, while on the other hand it lives entirely from the dialogue between soloist and mixed choir. The composer Bertold Hummel, who died on 9 August 2002, reserved the right to bid the world farewell with a work for solo violoncello entitled "Farewell". For Julius Berger, who was responsible for the Berlin premiere on 9 September 2002, it means "listening into a person's final thoughts". The fact that the process of artistic self-discovery can be a lifelong one is demonstrated by the work of Estonian-born composer Arvo Pärt. The melodic and rhythmic models from which the spherical sounds of the "Nunc Dimittis" for mixed choir recorded here originate are also reminiscent of the polyphony common in Viennese classical music. Works such as those by the composer Sofia Gubaidulina, who was born in the 1930s in the USSR, by Samuel Barb