Reviewed by Steven Whitehead

When confronted by contemporary classical music at its most extreme your reviewer finds himself reminded of the little boy who pointed out that the emperor was not wearing any clothes. Given that Hans Zender has deliberately tried to avoid any form of recurring motifs, melodies, or harmonies it is not surprising that listeners who do not follow the composer's philosophy are left shouting out that, although this might be very clever - dramatic even, it really is not music as it is usually understood. This is made clearer when we consider the texts that Zender has chosen. They can be dated primarily to the first and second centuries AD and have been taken from the New Testament, early Gnostic writings, and also apocryphal sources. Some of these texts are fragments from larger works, others have been passed down to us in aphoristic form. Despite their differences of language and tone they share a similar spiritual and religious atmosphere. They deal with central human themes from the perspective of religious belief: the origins of humanity, its life force, its suffering and fate, the life of the individual, the connection between body and spirit, as well as the relationships of human beings to one another. The ancient philosophers, most notably Philo of Alexandria, saw the Logos as God's creative agent, bringing order out of primordial chaos. The first Christians, following John's Gospel, saw that the Word, the Logos, was actually none other than the Divine Son of God. Thus in addition to being musically lacking, any creative interpretation that turns order back into chaos is missing a central point of orthodox Christianity. So far as I can tell the singers from SWR Vokalensemble Stuttgart give their all and the SWR Sinfonieorchester try to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear; some of the brass playing is superb. While I do like to get off the beaten track once in a while this piece is, to my ears at least, just a noise.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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