NDR Vokalensemble / Leif Ove Andsnes

With »Via Crucis«, Liszt depicts the fourteen Stations of the Cross, allocating texts from the Western liturgy to each one: Gregorian chorales and verses from the Stabat Mater as well as arrangements of Lutheran hymns. Liszt wrote concentrated harmonies that push at the envelope of tonality, and otherwise abandons himself entirely to the expressiveness of the human voice and of a keyboard instrument.
Instead of the organ setting, Grete Pedersen chooses to play the work on the piano, thus emphasising the simple progressiveness of this late piece. The Norwegian conductor, whose recordings have already won all major international awards from the Diapason dʼOr to the Gramophone Award, also breaks open the framework of the cantata and inserts works by other composers.