Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra

György Ligeti composed his Requiem, which is based on the Catholic liturgy, between 1963 and 1965, not long after completing his epochal work »Atmosphères«. »My Requiem is not liturgical. I am not Catholic. I come from Jewish descent but I am not a member of any religion. I used the requiem text because of its imagery of dread, of fear in the face of death and the end of the world.« The visual power of his music is very similar to the music of Gustav Mahler, who conjures an apocalyptic vision of Judgment Day in the finale of his Second Symphony. But rather than understanding the work as a depiction of the end of the world, the composer preferred to see it as a plea for a new approach to life – and thereby to these existential questions: »What is this life – and this death? Is there something on the other side? Is this all just a desolate dream, or does this life and this death have meaning?«