Twilight

Twilight is a moment that poets, especially romantic ones, have loved. Inspired by their work, composers such as Hans Koessler, Max Reger and Hubert Parry tried to convey as faithfully as possible the various states of the soul proper to the time of darkness. The NFM Choir led by Detlef Bratschke will take listeners on a magical journey along these dreamlike trails. In the work of the second of the creators, the singers will be accompanied by pianist Michał Rot.

The works of Hans Koessler and Max Reger combine not only the time of creation - the beginning of the 1890s - and inspiration from the music of Johannes Brahms. Bavarian artists were related to each other. Together with the elder of them, Koessler, a long-time lecturer in composition in Budapest (he led Bela Bartók, for example), we will plunge into the depths of Germanic romanticism in the full sense of the word. In Drei ernste Chöre, the educator is waiting for us to meet the mystery of the night and the story of lost love. The three choirs of the younger Reger touch a similar circle of feelings and moods. It is a meditation on divine love, nature, dream and sleep. Suffice it to say that we will move through the boundary space, in which the eyelids are half-closed, but the ears — alert.

Choral Farewell Songs Sir Hubert Parry created in the last two years of his life, during the First World War. Coming from the Victorian era, the author undoubtedly sensed the end of the known world, hence the need to draw up a personal jack. This was facilitated by a deep but highly individualized religiosity. The sound of reflective motets prompts reflection on finite things. The Englishman used texts by metaphysicians John Donne and Henry Vaughan, among others, and ended the cycle with Psalm 39, an ancient meditation on the fragility of human life.