Symphoniker Hamburg / Ensemble Al-Adwâr / Aïcha Redouane

Gems of choral music: musicologist Alfred Einstein found Mozart’s masterly Kyrie in D minor so moving »that it makes you want to sink to your knees«. The popular »Ave verum corpus« lives from the contrasts between major and minor, between tension and inner tranquillity – and the piece as a whole possesses »seraphic beauty«. Tchaikovsky’s musically very effective »Chrysostomos Liturgy« breathes the spirit of traditional Russian Orthodox chants, while Szymanowski in his »Litany to the Virgin Mary« created a farewell composition permeated with emotion; the composer himself described the piece as »perhaps [his] most heartfelt work«.