Franz Schmidt's Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln (The Book with Seven Seals) is a powerful setting of texts adapted from the Apocalypse of St. John for six vocalists, choir, organ, and orchestra, and was composed between 1935 and 1937, near the end of the composer's career. In its most potent passages, this oratorio vividly depicts the cataclysmic events described in the Bible's last book, but much of Schmidt's music evokes the Romantic past and draws inspiration from the great works of his time, such as Richard Wagner's operas ...
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Franz Schmidt's Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln (The Book with Seven Seals) is a powerful setting of texts adapted from the Apocalypse of St. John for six vocalists, choir, organ, and orchestra, and was composed between 1935 and 1937, near the end of the composer's career. In its most potent passages, this oratorio vividly depicts the cataclysmic events described in the Bible's last book, but much of Schmidt's music evokes the Romantic past and draws inspiration from the great works of his time, such as Richard Wagner's operas and Richard Strauss' tone poems, as well as Johannes Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem and possibly even Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 8. Fans of music on the grand scale will find Schmidt's epic score to be expansive in line, harmonically rich and varied, contrapuntally vigorous, and profoundly majestic in expression, very much a Bach-like summation of the age. Some critics have contended that, because of its most bellicose and dissonant parts, Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln anticipates the...
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Add this copy of Franz Schmidt: Das Buch Mit Sieben Siegeln [Hybrid Sacd to cart. $36.27, new condition, Sold by Revaluation Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Exeter, DEVON, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2008 by CHANDOS GROUP.
I first heard from Franz Schmidt from an excerpt on You Tube. Understandably, what I heard then was an highlight. So, to enjoy the complete work, one has to take time maybe a lot of time to digest this grand work. And it takes more than the length of time to appreciate such a piece of music.
Once on the right path, knowing where it is leading you, the rest of the music will serve very well the highlight in question.
So take time, it's all yours.
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