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10 singers are currently deep into rehearsals with stage director Chris Abraham and music director John Hess for what will be the premiere staged performance of Claude Vivier’s 1971 work, Musik für das Ende (Music of the End). Presented by Soundstreams, October 27 to November 4, Musik für das Ende is programmed along with the last piece Vivier wrote before his premature death in 1983, Glaubst du an die Unsterblichkeit der Seele (Do You Believe in the Immortality of the Soul?)

Death and the afterlife were common ponderances of Vivier’s, and Musik für das Ende is a piece that urges the artist to imitate a spiritual concept with the musical demands of the score. “Two threads join this body to the human spirit: a word and the rhythm assigned to it,” writes Vivier in his composer’s notes for the piece. “I specify these two elements because they belong not to a cosmic certitude, but to human verity. The Music of the End is where all is forever erased, where all becomes infinite silence.”

Read the full article by Jenna Simeonov here.