Category: Organ / Sacred Music , Choir / Vocal
Movements: 1: „Freedom of the Christian Man“
2: About the soul
3: About faith
4: Intermezzo: The Luther Rose
5: „Here I stand!“
6: About love
Duration: 19 minutes
Instrumentation: Luther Mosaic
based on texts by Martin Luther for soprano, tenor, oboe and organ
(audio transmission/electronic ad libitum)
Text/Lyrics by: Martin Luther
Introduction: PROLOGUE:
The Reformation 500 years ago freed people especially from their world of ideas: no paternalism by dogma or religious decrees, self-responsibility instead of paternalism by the ecclesiastical moral and ethics code, freedom of one's opinion controlled by self-criticism and never ending supply of knowledge... The musical mosaic tries to emotionally convey something about this "freedom". The texts only provide keywords, room for associations and pictures in a very fragmentary way without a closed logical frame. They come from Luther's script "About the freedom of the Christian man". The instrumental "comments" on the individual text fragments play a special role. Briefly: "Reformation" not to understand, but to dream and to feel.
Texts:
1: „Freedom of the Christian man“
„The Lord is the Spirit, where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom“.
(2.Kor. 3, V4)
"A Christian man is a free lord over all things and subject to no one"
"A Christian is a subservient servant of all things, and subject to every man"
"You should be free from all things!" (Luther: Freedom of the Christian Man)
2: About the soul
"How does it help the soul, if the body is free, fresh and healthy, eats, drinks and lives as it likes? - How does it harm the soul, if the body is trapped, sick and faint, is hungry, thirsty and suffers? None of these things can reach the soul, in order to free or trap the soul, to make the soul pious or evil."
"If the soul, however, has the say, the soul does not need any other things, but it then is full of sufficiency, food, joy, peace, light, art, justice, truth, wisdom, FREEDOM.
3: About faith
"The Christian reaches this honors exclusively by faith and not by work. (Fragments of the Luther choral)
We all believe in one God, creator of heaven and earth...
... who sacrificed himself to the Father, so that we become his children.
4: Intermezzo: The Luther Rose
5: „Here I stand!“
Luther during the Reichstag in Worms: "I cannot help it - here I stand!"
"Christ liberated us to freedom! Now stand firmly" (Gal. 5:1)
6: About love
"... that all works should be intended to benefit your fellow people...to serve your fellow people from free love".
"...that a Christian man does not live in himself, but in Christ through faith, in the fellow man through love."
"... Love is freedom in its most beautiful form (Landesbischof Frank Otfried July)
Additional remarks: The composition is an independent (abbreviated, instrumentally amended and adapted to tenor) version of "...There is freedom" for soprano, baritone and orchestra (world premiere at the Black Forest Music Festival 2017 with the Philharmonic Orchestra Baden-Baden, conducted by Mark Mast)
World premiere: 19.03.2017, Christuskirche (Christ Church) Kronach
Performers at world premiere: Lisa Rothländer
(soprano) - Sebastian Köchig (tenor) - Danielle Maheux (Oboe) - Marius Popp (organ) - Enjott Schneider (electronic audio transmission)
Records: 2017
