Vocalconsort Leipzig
GewandhausChor
Gregor Meyer - Conductor
Stefan Engels - Organ
What is the essence of creating ecclesiastical choir music between late romansicism and modernity? Sigfrid Karg-Elert, a composer from Leipzig, found a highly complex and original answer to this question that is worth exploring. Great emotiveness and individual, almost intimate emotionality, which can also be found in Max Reger's music, are closely connected. In the chorale „Näher, mein Gott, zu dir“, which supposedly was being played by the orchestra on the Titanic while it was sinking, Karg-Elert artistically processed not only the death of his friend (a musician on a ship), but also the symbolic catastrophe of modernity.
In cooperation with the Gewandhaus choir, Vocalconsort Leipzig recorded Karg-Elert's sacred choral music, which takes up very little space in the composer's works. Therefore, the CD aims at drawing attention to this aspect of Karg-Elert's oevre, which otherwise contains mainly pieces for organ. In this context, the cooperation with Stefan Engels, who is a distinct expert on Karg-Elert's works, was particularly fruitful. For a few years, he has been working on the world's first complete recording of Karg-Elert's compositions for organ.