The Greek poetess Sappho wrote her poems, which have survived in fragmentary form, in exile in Sicily in about 600 BC. Full of natural intensity and liveliness, her verses revolve around the conditions of a human existence that is bittersweet. Her credo is: “the most beautiful thing is that which one loves”. Christian Jost has captured the mood of these words in lyrical scenes for mezzosoprano and piano. The singing voice follows the shape of Sappho’s words in the classical Greek with sensitive phrasing, while the piano creates expressively dramatic structures of sound.