Roses

Rainer Maria Rilke’s lyric poetry has always fascinated Cyrill Schürch. Rilke’s texts are actually already music; they are a figure that one still has to simply chisel out of the metaphorical stone. On the one hand, this choral composition is a reflection on nature and the transience of life; on the other hand, it also portrays how one can joyfully relish the beauty of life. In the 2021 ISCM Composition Competition for equal voices the men’s choir version of this piece won first prize. In February 2023 it was successfully premiered by the Male Voices Basel under the direction of Eric Whitacre.