Joseph / Santana / Rux - Paradeis - Angelus Silesius Songbook [CD]

Antje Rux and Lee Santana venture on an unconventional spiritual journey in their latest release. They found inspiration for their song cycle in the poet Angelus Silesius, who made a particularly deeply felt religiosity the basis of his texts. The Breslau court composer Georg Joseph set the 200 poems of his Heiligen Seelenlust to music as early as the 17th century. Lee Santana selected 14 of them and made them the starting point for further arrangements with ritornellos and preludes. Antje Rux explains the unusual principle behind this compilation: 'We have combined the Silesius songbook by Lee with a small, fine selection of Georg Joseph songs, harmonised in terms of content. Since both composers use modal keys, it will sometimes not be immediately recognisable to the listener whether they are musically in the 17th or 21st century.' These interweavings create extraordinary sound effects that make the spirituality tangible.