Donaueschinger Musiktage 2007 HANS ZENDER (b.1936): Logos-Fragmente for 32 Singers and 3 Orchestral Groups (SWR Vokalensemble Stuttgart, SWR Symphony Orchestra Baden-Baden und Freiburg; Sylvain Cambreling), KLAUS HUBER (b.1924): Quod est Pas? Vers la Raison du Cœur... for 5 Solo Voices, Arabic Percussion, Percussion and Orchestra (Nora Thiele [Arabic percussion], les jeunes solistes, SWR Symphony Orchestra Baden-Baden und Freiburg; Rupert Huber).

Description: Zender's 'Fragments' are part of a work in progress, setting a variety of Biblical, apocryphal and gnostic texts for 32 solo voices widely spaced among the forces of a spatially segregated large orchestra. The music is ritualistic, and composed according to very closely controlled structural and harmonic outlines, largely free of conventional tonal concerns, though not of passages of sumptuous (if at times microtonal) harmony, and lyrical melody, especially eloquent in the short 'psalm' of No.5, which emphasizes the soloistic nature of the voices. Tutti within the orchestra, the texture flowing between the three divided groups, take on an especially impressive aspect, and the hocketing and antiphonal division of vocal lines also lends an additional level of concentrated ritual to the proceedings. Huber's program notes make clear the twin preoccupations of his late years; an awareness of his approaching death, and a heightened awareness of the lack of peace and balance in the world. This substantial piece, full of funereal sounds and rhythms (the latter including a striking funeral march, underscored by the unusual timbres of Arabic percussion), explores a variety of philosophical and poetic texts which punctuate the whole at intervals, separated by instrumental interludes of extraordinary delicacy, mostly in floating, microtonal harmonies.