NDR Chor / Klaas Stok

The combination of the human voice and the sound of wind instruments has always fascinated composers, conveying as it does a feeling of wide expanses and impressive spaces. Stravinsky wrote his »Mass for Choir and Wind Instruments« for liturgical use in church. Bruckner’s mighty »Mass in E minor« is strictly speaking an outdoor work for performance beneath the heavens; the first performance was given in the open air to mark the consecration of the votive chapel of the new cathedral in Linz. And Gabriel Jackson’s »The Spacious Firmament« expands the horizon of sound and ideas to take in outer space. In this piece, the British composer sets to music the poem of the same name by Joseph Addison, in which the poet conjures up a picture of the vast expanses of the heavens above us.