An inspiring and thought-provoking afternoon of music themed around spiritual struggle and mortality through experiences of Nazi oppression in Europe during the 20th century.

Hugo Distler’s Totentanz weaves together stark, expressive choral interludes with brief spoken texts drawn from Baroque sources. Deeply influenced by early Lutheran music, this work stands apart for its spiritual integrity and formal clarity, qualities that brought him into quiet opposition with the cultural values of the Nazi regime. His “Dance of Death” was inspired by the extraordinary medieval painting, then in St Mary’s Church in Lübeck, of skeletons dancing with people from every rank of society. Eight years after Distler’s piece was premiered in Lübeck, the church and its painting were destroyed by air raids.

Vally Weigl was a Jewish composer and music therapist from Vienna who fled to the United States in 1938, escaping Nazi persecution. These final pieces, written in the later years of her life, are meditative, lyrical and quietly affirming – offering a sense of spiritual resolution.

In different ways, these composers grapple with the existential pressures of their times whether through inner exile, literal exile or sacred expression.

This programme traces a path from anguish through lamentation to the possibility of peace.

Britten Pears Chamber Choir
Ben Vonberg-Clark conductor