Pianist and composer Eduard Kiprsky, a native of St. Petersburg and winner of countless international composition awards, has long been involved with writing song cycles. On this album, titled “Friedensgebet” (Prayer for Peace), mezzo-soprano Margarita Gritskova - a beloved ensemble member of the Vienna State Opera - and Alexander Mikhailov, tenor at St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre, join Kiprsky at the piano to perform a selection of his songs. These settings of poems by Heinrich Heine, Eduard Mörike, Hermann Hesse, Joseph von Eichendorff, and Clemens Brentano, among others, explore doubt, loss, and suffering, yet also love, hope, and resilience. Framing the vocal works are two instrumental pieces: the Arioso for Piano, Violin, and Cello and the award-winning “Friedensgebet” String Quartet, which lends the album its title. Kiprsky reflects: My music strives to touch the most vulnerable facets of human existence. In its search for meaning, hope, and faith, it contemplates eternal truths - the perfection of nature and its harmony.