The Maulbronn Chamber Choir From morning early .... till late night A musical day in the tradition of the hourly prayers Conductor: Juergen Budday A recording from the "Entenfusshalle" in Monastery Maulbronn (1999) Audio-CD, DDD, 65 min. ISBN 3-930643-64-2, US$ 19,00 mp3 download - "O lux mentium" A musical day in the tradition of the hourly prayers with works of Orlando di Lasso, Joseph Rheinberger, F. Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Rolf Schweizer, Johann H. Schein, Jozef Swider, Arvo Pärt, Sven D. Sandström, Max Reger - Conductor: Jürgen Budday. Recorded in the duckfoot-hall of the monastery Maulbronn by A. O. Grimminger and J. S. Kindler in cooperation with Jürgen Budday. The tradition of the hourly prayers Even nowadays the Evangelic Seminar of the Monastery Maulbronn, which is the supporter of the Chamber Choir Maulbronn, holds on to this tradition at certain events. So the idea of taking the liturgical form and making it the form of a clerical musical programm suggested itself. Its surely impossible to use the whole text of the hourly prayers for the transformation to a choir-composition. The concept is based on the selection of essential parts of each prayer. Each prayer contains words dealing with a certain time of day, a psalm-prayer and a canticum ( hymn of the New Testament). The special tension of the programm is created by the confrontation of 19th-century compositions with stilistic contrary 20th-century and unison oldstyle clerical compositions. Arvo Pärt restricts himself to few harmonies and is sparing with musical mesures (minimal music). While Pärt puts stress on vertical harmony and sensitive sounds, Rolf Schweizers compositions are dominated by strictly contrapunctical linearity, which aims above all to a consequent forming of the shape of every single part. Hear my prayer, o lord of the contemporary swedish composer Sven David Sandström is of a totaly diferent kind. It is based on a piece of the english baroque composer Henry Purcell. Sandström takes over directly Purcells composition and, right in the middle of the work, transfers it very sensitive into his own modern musical language. The Maulbronn Chamber Choir The choir was formed in 1983 by Jürgen Budday when he recieved an invitation to a USA-tour. This led to the remarkable situation that the first perfomance of the chamber choir was in Trinity Church, Wall Street, New York. The choir gained various national and international victories in choir-competitions. Numerous journeys led the choir to different european countries, to USA and two times to Argentina. In 1992 the choir achieved a special honor by being representative of the Federal Republic of Germany at the Zimriya in Israel. In may 1998 the Maulbronn Chamber Choir won the 5th German Choir Competition at Regensburg. In november 1998 the choir won the competition at the 12th international days of choir at Prague and was worshipped as the best choir of the whole festival, as Laureat of the Prague festival. Several German, Polish and Czech Broadcasting-Companies produced with the Chamber Choir, the choir published, up to now, six cds. Choral traditions spanning the globe "The Maulbronner Kammerchor, conducted by Jurgen Budday, can serve as a model example of the best that there is in the German style of this art: roundly shaped clear phrases, deliberately designed shadings of dynamics, precise articulation an a homogeneous balance of well-cultured voices. These caracteristics are symptomatic, regardless of whether they are singing a Mendelssohn motet, a modern psalm setting by Heinz Werner Zimmermann or a humorous as well as clever arrangement of Old McDonald Had a Farm, light in presentation but studded with thoroughly rehearsed effects..." (Jerusalem Post, Israel) Jürgen Budday Conductor of the Maulbronn Chamber Choir. Works and teaches since 1979 at the Evangelic Seminar Maulbronn. Budday is the artistic leader of both the Maulbronn Choir and the Maulbronn Chamber Choir. His work as teacher and artist was honored by several prices, as the Bruno-Frey-Price of the Country Acadamy at Ochsenhausen or the Bundesverdienstkreuz. O lux mentium composed 1998 by Rolf Schweizer Premiere 1998 of the Maulbronn Chamber Choir O lux mentium, deus, expelle a me stultitiae noctem et da mihi sapientiae diem; orire veritatis sol et iustitiae de profundissimis naturae tuae finibus omnem intellectum superantibus; appare in aethere animae meae, super terram cordis mei. Extingue igitur phantasias corporum et phantasmata vanarum cogitationum mearum. Crea prolem intelligentiarum tuarum in utero mentis meae. Effunde spiritum sanctum tuum super aquas informitatis meae, ut conversus ad te, conformis filii tui videam te per te et omnia sub te. O tu purissima vertas, tu vide te in me, tu intellige te in me. Per me ipsum nihil video nisi vana et fluxa et caduca, nihil video nisi falsa et corporea plasmanta. Per me nihil sum nisi, mors et abyssus tenebrosa et imperfecta. In te sum, quantum sum. In te vivo, quantum vivo. In te intelligo, quantum intelligo, quia tu es summa intelligentia, essentia summa, summa vita. Pater et filius et spiritus sanctus, unitas triplex, trinitas simplex in se infinitio deo, sine fine deus unus in saecula saeculorum. Amen (1482) The monastery Maulbronn The monastery is recognized as the only completely preserved medeaeval complex north of the alps. In 1994 it was admitted to the Unesco-list of world culture heritage of mankind as the 13. building in germany and so finds himself in company with such famous buildings as the Pyramids or the Tadsch Mahal.