Forbes Classical CD Of The Week: Ligeti's Modernism With A Heart

Happy Boxing Day to You!

…Frieder Bernius, leader of the Stuttgart Chamber Choir, was taught by a member of the Schola Cantorum Stuttgart whose founder and director in turn was the great Clytus Gottwald. Gottwald not only created some of the most challenging, brilliant, and touching arrangements for acapella groups, he was also close to György Ligeti and commissioned the latter’s Lux æterna (1966) for the 16 voices of his – the former’s – ensemble. That text specifically offered itself, because Ligeti had not set it in his Requiem (1965) and in that sense Lux æterna is a natural companion piece to the Requiem. This release on the chorally-inclined Carus label (mainly a publisher of scores with a side in superb recordings to popularize those scores – a setup not unlike Wergo/Schott) follows and links all these tracks and combines Frider Bernius’ 2006 performance of the Requiem with that of Lux æterna (put down in 1996) and then adds four of those sublime Gottwald arrangements of Ravel, Debussy, and Mahler (recorded between 1996 and 2007)[1]…

-> Classical CD Of The Week: Ligeti's Modernism With A Heart

György Ligeti, Requiem, Lux Aeterna + Clytus Gottwald transcriptions, Frieder Bernius, Stuttgart Chamber ChoirDanubia Orchestra Oduba, Garbiele Hierdeis (soprano), Renée Morloc (Alto), Carus