The rather long title to this work composed by Hans-Peter Frehner highlights the complexity of this hyper-textual piece: a 55-minute composition of the most rigorous kind based an a German translation of the short story by 19th century Ukrainian poet Isaac Babel. The Ensemble Für Neue Musik, which includes Frehner on flute, Manfred Spitaler on clarinet, Viktor Müller on piano, Lorenz Haas on percussion, Urs Bumbacher on violin, Nicola Romanò on cello and the voices of Dorothea Schürch and Daniel Mouthon is conducted by Lukas Langlotz. The romantic tragedy of the story which focuses on the libidinous nature of its protagonist Arina, a chambermaid from whom Jesus eventually begs forgiveness for having been responsible for making her that way and she refusing his repentance, is musically evoked in a haunting tone, throughout, with ghostly timbres and sonorities woven in melodic lines reminiscent of Arnold Schoenberg and the more minimalist Alban Berg.

Composer Frehner has reproduced the text in fragments and staggered overlays that are intoned by the voices, and he explores the rich nuances of the spoken word, lingering, extending, and shortening for rhythmic and sonorous effect. After a quickly articulated percussive opening, the rest of the ensemble enters and the long piece begins its rise and fall, ebbing and flowing in theatrical intensity, with all involved providing strokes of color, here a whisper, there a ringing, bright spatter, there a deft smear. The most captivating characteristic is the fluctuating nuanced male and female voices which seem to have a free rein, as to actual notes and phrasing, improvising in a kind of speech-song not unlike Schoenberg's atonal poem settings

With instruments alternately dropping out and highlighting textual content delivered by the voices, the mood changes are dramatic at times, with shouting and bombastic crescendos followed by introspective brooding, making this a real treat for the cerebral romantics among us who enjoy challenging intellectual music that is also passionate.