Commissioned by AVROTROS Vrijdagconcert with support from the Fonds Podium Kunsten / Performing Arts Fund NL
20' 2.2.2.4 - 4.2.2.3.1- timp, 3perc[1.Tenor Drum, Tamtam, Triangle 2. Bass Drum 3. 2 Bells in C and G, behind the scene (These bells are the same as in the Symphony Fantastique by Hector Berlioz) - 2hp - str(16.14.12.10.8) Large Mixed Choir SATB
The release of the landmark digital recording of Theo Verbey’s Traurig wie der Tod is a milestone in the Theo Verbey Foundation’s efforts to preserve and distribute Verbey’s music. Traurig wie der Tod is a twenty-minute cycle of five songs for choir and orchestra, interspersed with instrumental interludes. The work – commissioned by AVROTROS Vrijdagconcert – eulogizes sorrow from various perspectives and is based on poems from The Chinese Flute, Hans Bethge’s 1907 collection of German reinterpretations of ancient Chinese poems (the same source was used by Gustav Mahler for Das Lied von der Erde).