Widmann, J: Arche

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If we think we hear Bach at one moment, then Mahler at the next, and then Widmann himself, then we’d be right: it’s a bit like being presented with the entire range of German art music in one... — Choir & Organ, March 2019, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 5th Oct 2018
Catalogue No: 4817007
Label: ECM
Series: New Series
Length: 1 hour 41 minutes

Opus Klassik Awards

2019

Winner - Composer of the Year

Usually despatched in 3 - 4 working days

Widmann, J: Arche

Work length1:41:04

$5.50

$7.50

$10.25

Gabriel Böer (boy soprano), Antonius Hentschel (narrator), Jonna Plate (narrator), Marlis Petersen (soprano), Iveta Apkalna (organ), Thomas E. Bauer (baritone)
Audi Jugendchorakademie, Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg, Hamburg State Opera Choir, Hamburger Alsterspatzen
Kent Nagano
Recorded: 2018
Recording Venue: Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg

1. Fiat Lux / Es werde Licht

Track length18:58

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2. Sintflut

Track length29:03

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3. Die Liebe

Track length26:55

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4. Dies irae

Track length16:52

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5. Dona nobis pacem

Track length9:16

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About

For the opening of Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie concert hall, the German composer Jorg Widmann was commissioned to write a new oratorio for soloists, choirs, organ and orchestra, Arche.

Widmann drew inspiration from the shape of the building itself: “From the outside it resembles a ship. To me, the interior looked like the hold of a ship, an ark...Re-emerging into the daylight, the ark idea would not leave me alone. The inflection of the music I had to compose was clear....” Arche is a compendious work embracing the course of history in the west with a collaged libretto drawing upon a range of writers: from the unknown authors of the Old Testament to Nietzsche and Sloterdijk via Francis of Assisi, Michelangelo and Schiller. Arche looks at the tradition of the oratorio and transforms it.

Dieter Rexroth in the liner notes: “What immediately stands out is above all the impression of paradox and the vast diversity of forms and musical resources. Everything happens at once, everything interlocks. Every moment transports us into another world.” Kent Nagano directs the massed musical forces with characteristic verve, clarity

and imagination in this concert recording from the premiere performance in January 2017.

Reviews

March 2019

If we think we hear Bach at one moment, then Mahler at the next, and then Widmann himself, then we’d be right: it’s a bit like being presented with the entire range of German art music in one piece. This recording is of the premiere. Hats off to all the performers under Kent Nagano’s forensic direction, and to ECM for making it possible. It’s a terrific achievement for all concerned.

December 2018

With Arche, Jörg Widmann has (at the age of 45) delivered the kind of history-of-everything evening-length oratorio that, in retrospect, seems an inevitable point of arrival for his music…The audio-only record lacks nothing for flair, energy and commitment to Widmann’s world of convinced irony.

Widmann, J: Arche

2 CDs

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