The many young soldiers who fell in World War I deeply affected Herbert Howells, yet his Requiem primarily exudes hope. The reassuring voice given to death inspired the American composer and Pulitzer Prize winner David Lang. He fashioned five love poems from Schubert’s imposing body of Lieder into the moving cycle Death Speaks. Life sometimes conquers death, and a person occasionally returns from the other side. Epic tales and fascination with the final journey have been sources of inspiration for centuries. Ola Gjeilo used an ancient Norwegian poem as the basis for Dreamweaver, composing an intense story of the heroic, beautiful, frightening and in the end purifying journey to the hereafter.

Flagey, Vlaams Radio Koor