Japan

This is a new installment in the SWR Vokalensemble's country series. It contains excellent performances of rarely performed and recorded choral works. The SWR Vokalensemble is among the best choirs in the world. The accompanying booklet contains the Japanese texts of the works. In it's more than 2000-year history Japan has developed it's own, independent music, whose principal means of expression are single tones and tonal color, which is used in quite a broad spectrum, including sounds. References to nature and it's sounds is another aspect of great significance. This album presents a selection of choral works which were composed after 1950, at a time when a lot of Japanese composers began to free themselves from European and American music as their model and started to develop individual styles. In doing so, they also used elements of Japan's musical tradition and integrated them into their own musical language in various ways.