Klangspuren Festival 2023

In the work cycle cantica christinae I–III Klaus Lang addresses the work of the Pre-Raphaelite poet Christina Rossetti (1830–1894). The Pre-Raphaelites were a group of English visual artists, who came together in 1848 as a kind of brotherhood. This group of artists saw eye to eye not only in their critique of the then prevailing academic canon, but also in their desire to redefine the relationship between arts and crafts in a non-hierarchical, egalitarian way. Klaus Lang shares not only this view with the Pre-Raphaelites, but also their preference for Late Medieval and Early Renaissance art, epochs that were extremely prolific for all art forms. “I was fascinated by the notion of picking up this tradition in two ways: cantica christinae sets 19th-century ‘Pre-Raphaelite’ poems to music using polyphonic chansons and contrapuntal techniques developed in the 15th and 16th centuries and lends cantica christinae a contemporary sound form nonetheless.” (Klaus Lang)