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- Sven Helbig
Requiem A (2024)
- C.F. Peters GmbH & Co. KG (World)
- Bar + SATB; 1.1.1+bcl.1/2.4.3.0/timp.3perc/electronics/str(8.6.4.4.2)
- SATB
- Bar
- 1 hr
- Sven Helbig
- 4th October 2025, Central Hall Westminster, London, United Kingdom
Programme Note
Requiem A combines liturgical and new texts. The ‘A’ in the title stands for ‘Beginning’ (German ‚Anfang’) and admonishes with poetic pictures reconciliation and new beginnings. ‘Setting off‘ (Aufbruch), ‘ashes‘ (Asche) and ‘breathing‘ (Atmen) are key words in the texts which seek a way out of mourning and into life.
Requiem A consists of nine parts with a concert duration of approximately 60 minutes.
It includes live visuals by Icelandic film artist Máni M. Sigfusson.
Media
Reviews
‘Requiem A’ by German composer Sven Helbig did something rare: it turned grief into gravity and memory into momentum.
His ability to hold the sacred and the synthetic, the intimate and the monumental, in the same frame has long marked him out as a singular voice. With ‘Requiem A’, that shape-shifting mastery becomes something else: a deeply personal reckoning rendered universal.
‘Requiem A’ ... isn’t merely a choral work: it’s an act of sonic archaeology, sifting through inherited trauma to excavate a future still worth striving toward.
In ‘Requiem A’, Helbig doesn’t just memorialise. He architects an alertness, one that holds the past, acknowledges the present and dares to imagine something better.
Discography
Requiem A
- LabelDeutsche Grammophon
- Catalogue Number514191000
- EnsembleDresdner Kreuzchor / Saxon State Orchestra
- SoloistRené Pape
- Released9th May 2025
More Info
- Requiem A by Sven Helbig - 80th anniversary of the destruction of Dresden and the end of WWII
- 4th February 2025
- On February 9, 80 years after the destruction of Dresden in the Second World War and its end later in May, Requiem A for choir, bass and orchestra by Sven Helbig will be premiered at Kreuzkirche Dresden.