Berio/ Xasax/ Rundel - Canticum Novissimi Testamenti

The passion with which both of them approached the sound of language was the basis for the long and fruitful collaboration between Edoardo Sanguineti and Luciano Berio. Sanguineti considers "Canticum novissimi testamenti" and "A-Ronne" to be the most successful musical settings of his texts. In his obituary for his friend, Sanguineti wrote in 2003: "For me he embodies purely and simply how music can be planned and thought today." "A-Ronne" begins with the biblical assertion that the word stood at the beginning of all things and concludes with the line "in my end is my music." Sanguineti could hardly have presented the composer with a better text on the subject of the transformation of the word into music. In "Canticum novissimi testamenti" Berio traces the subtle nuances and shifting moods of the poem with elegantly homogeneous sound from eight singers and eight winds.