Make me an instrument of your peace | March 2015

Seagulls screeching and the roar of war: "The Sacred choral music" Heinrich Schütz created during the Thirty Years' War (1648) and with it the baroque double choir "Dona Nobis Pacem". What do prayers for peace sound like in a time of war? And how do the Baltic composers Arvo Pärt and Erik Esenvald set whispered prayers, whistling sea noise and fearful chorus of words to music in the context of the Cold War? In the search for peace in the 17th and 20th centuries, the sacred choral works encounter the words of Francis of Assisi and Mother Teresa and the challenge: "Lord, make me an instrument of your peace that I love where people hate".