Symphonic Psalms & Prayers

Signum Classics

The Psalms have inspired some of the greatest religious choral settings in musical history. The liquid vocal ensemble Tenebrae, supported by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, turn to relatively recent examples in a programme of music that encompasses wellknown settings of Bernstein and Stravinsky, as well as less frequently heard versions of Schoenberg and Zemlinsky. They open with the raw, intense neoclassicism of Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms, and a performance that is almost unnerving in its directness. Schoenberg’s Friede auf Erden ,a sumptuous example of his early post-brahmsian harmonic style, offers quilted respite, before we enter the sugary religiosity of Bernstein’s

Chichester Psalms, albeit heightened by the drama of the final movement, from its steely string opening to the sentimentality of Adonai. Zemlinsky’s setting of Psalm 23 beckons us to the world of post-mahler delirium.