No to the Angst of Life

Commissioned by the Oberaudorf-Reisach Music Festival, Bergman's "No to the Angst of Life" comprises three settings from a book by the philosopher Peter Lauster. The work is a progressive unity which starts out with a Sprechgesang movement, followed by a love song-like poem setting of atmospheric transparency. It ends with the mantra-like repetition of the single Sentence "instead of accusing we must forgive" – pointing a way out of the fragmented world in which we live.