Concerto for Choir

Alfred Schnittke once said that he did not create music but merely listened, like a medium, and let others hear the sounds from the ‘world beyond’. The _Concerto for Choir_ is a prime example. Even in Soviet Russia, the sense of ‘something larger’ transcending our existence motivated Schnittke to set the medieval Book of Lamentations. Its unusually rich and compelling tonal language makes it one of the most powerful cycles in the choral literature.