Night Hymns

The five-movement work Night Hymns is one of Alexander Raskatov’s major instrumental compositions originating in the 1980s. The work takes up the concept of the nocturne and displays, among other stylistic attributes, elements of contemporary aleatoric music and minimal music. The unorthodox instrumentation with lower register woodwind instruments, horns, trombone, electric and bass guitars, bells and percussion recalls the three lower register voices in the initial nocturnal scene from Mozart’s Don Giovanni.