The musics of Luigi Nono and Wolfgang Rihm have often been linked. Nono’s late style, a world of sharplyetched, strikingly sparse sound forms set against a background of silence, made a deep impression on his younger colleague, whose works from the mid-1980s onwards show the clear imprint of the Italian master’s visionary clarity.

This recording of works for differing ensembles of solo voices shows another trait the two hold in common: a passionate engagement with their fellow humanbeings, giving rise to a music of searing and shocking directness. The human soul stripped to a mouth, a mouth opened in transcendental suffering - of the relatives of the disappeared in Argentina, of Jesus on the Cross - or closed in defiant compassion for the victims of AIDS. A mouth that can also sing of the violent cataclysms of creative ecstasy and the quiet lyricism of a peaceful Utopia.

Recorded over a period of five years, EXAUDI’s new disc is a labour of love, featuring music that has been part of the ensemble’s lifeblood since its foundation, each performance thoroughly embedded in heart and voice before being committed to disc. We hope that the results succeed in showing these varied and remarkable works, which we love deeply, in a new and clearer light.