Zender has worked to give the central category of 'harmony' a special oppositional character. Out of his growing dissatisfaction with the equal tempered tuning system, he pushed the treatment of microintonation to the point of dividing the octave into 72 microintervals. It requires enormous vocal and instrumental mastery to make this microtonality seem an unanticipated enrichment.

The four compositions on this CD, presented here for the first time as a cycle, are steeped in these complex and subtle harmonic ideas, rich in possibilities yet extremely fragile. The pieces, with different performing combinations, function as a cycle primarily because of the poet chosen. ‘St. John of the Cross’ a great Spanish mystic of the 16th century. His 'Cántico spiritual' is counted among the literary high points of the Spanish Golden Age.

Zender set the first 14 of the complete 40 verses in a manner 'entirely like Mozart'; this easily fits into Zender’s sophisticated and pluralistic musical and literary view of the world, which mediates between Hölderlin and Joyce, Shakespeare and Michaux, Dada and the Bible, and which discovers closer connections between Surrealism and Zen philosophy, or Master Eckart and Master Ikkyu, 'than are dreamt of in our philosophy'.

Artists

Angelika Luz (soprano), Ernst Kovacic (violin) & Priska Eser (soprano)

Klangforum Wien, Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, SWR Vokalensemble Stuttgart & SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg, Sylvain Cambreling, Susanna Malkki, Marcus Creed & Emilio Pomarico