Harald Weiss: Requiem

The Knabenchor Hannover with this CD presents the premiere recording of Harald Weiss’s requiem Schwarz vor Augen und es ward Licht! The boys and young men have worked on this piece with their director Jörg Breiding for over a year, and their work is now condensed into 90 minutes. In the context of the Bremer Kirchentag in 2009, the Kantorei St Stephani and the Bremer Philharmoniker already performed individual sections of the new work.

The contemporary composer Weiss has dedicated the large-scale work to the Knabenchor Hannover because he has now shared strong ties with the choir for many years. Yet, in this particular case, he is interested particularly in the characteristics of boys’ voices.

In the requiem, Schwarz vor Augen und es ward Licht!, the notes hardly change—and yet much happens in the music. Layers of sound build up, an individual boy’s voice sings the words: teach us to number our days … from Psalm 90. The requiem’s opening is the beginning of a journey inward. ‘I want the sound to unfold itself in the innermost souls of my listeners’, Weiss said in an interview given only few days before the premiere performance.

Dorothee Mields
Andreas Karasiak
NDR Radiophilharmonie
Knabenchor Hannover
Jörg Breiding