FRANZ LISZT - nca - new classical adventure

vocal music “as though bathing in the Jordan”, as he
wrote to his daughter Blandine. One of the results
of these impressions was a somewhat curious piano
piece with the title À la Chapelle Sixtine. Miserere
de Allegri et Ave verum Corpus de Mozart. Its first
version was completed by Palm Sunday, 1862, and
a second appeared in October of the same year,
also then being published by Peters of Leipzig. The
piece is a combination of two arrangements of
choral works, the Miserere, a motet by the Roman
composer Gregorio Allegri, and the well-known Ave
verum Corpus, composed in Baden by Mozart in the
year of his death. Liszt explained the point of this
combination thus:
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“The miseries and anxieties of people groan in the
Miserere, God’s boundless mercy and willing ear
answer and sing in the Ave verum Corpus. This
touches the most sublime of all mysteries, it reveals
to us that love is victorious over evil and death.”
Liszt later made an arrangement of the piece
for four hands, another for organ and finally
an orchestral version that was given the title
Évocation à la Chapelle Sixtine.
Gerhard Winkler
CHORUS SINE NOMINE
Founded in 1991 by Johannes Hiemetsberger,
Chorus sine nomine is regarded today as one of
the leading Austrian vocal ensembles. It gives
guest performances at festivals and events such
as Wiener Konzerthaus; Wiener Musikverein;
Sryriate; Osterklang, Vienna; Salzburg Festival,
Pfingsten+Barock; Bruckner Festival, Linz; Chamber
Music Festival, Lockenhaus; and Music Festival,
Grafenegg; and appears regularly in the concert
series Musikalische Jugend Austria, with which the
chorus has a special connection. In recent years
Chorus sine nomine has performed increasingly
on concert platforms abroad – for example at the
Ravenna festival; at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées,
Paris; the Barbican, London; and in the Philharmonie,
Munich – and has undertaken extensive a capella
tours to Asia (Philippines, Taiwan) and to the USA.
In October 2009 they gave guest performances,
together with the Wiener Akademie, for the first
time in South America.
Numerous first prizes at well-known choral
competitions (European Broadcasting Union
competition “Let the Peoples Sing”, Choral
competition at Spittal, Austria, Florilège Vocal de
Tours) and also CD productions document the quality
and significance of what is closest to the hearts of
Chorus sine nomine, namely, their dedication to a
capella music in all its rich diversity.
Chorus sine nomine’s programme would be
unthinkable without projects specially conceived
and unconventional types of concerts such as
CRY (2004), FROST (2007) or HAPPY BIRTHDAY
(2009) and commissions awarded to contemporary
composers, for instance recently to Wolfgang
Sauseng (Johannespassion, Totentanz).
Chorus sine Nomine
Working with conductors such as Jordi Savall,
Kristian Järvi, Martin Haselböck, H.K. Gruber, Gidon
Kremer, Trevor Pinnock, Ulf Schirmer and orchestras
such as the Camerata Salzburg, the Vienna Symphony
Orchestra, the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra,
L’Orfeo Barockorchester and the ensemble Sarband
under Vladimir Ivanoff, Chorus sine nomine has
realised a choral-orchestral programme enormous
in its variety of styles; ranging from Emilio de
Cavalieri’s Rappresentatione di Anima e di Corpo
through the great choral works by Johann Sebastian
Bach to Leonard Bernstein’s “Mass”; from Kurt
Weill’s Mahagonny, Steve Reich’s “Desert Music”, to
Sofia Gubaidulina’s Sonnengesang.
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