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• Series: Choral
• Publisher: Schott
• Format: Softcover
• Mixed Choir
• Composer: Joerg Widmann
• Price: $12.99 (US)

For many years, I have felt a close connection to the city of Barcelona and its magnificent musical temple, the Palau de la Música Catalana. When I received the request to write a piece for this special place, its baroque organ, and the wonderful folk choir Orfeó Català, I immediately thought of the old Catalan folk and Christmas carol 'El cant dels ocells'. Nevertheless, I also studied a variety of other Catalan songs – and yet I returned with joy to this wonderful 'Song of the Birds' and wrote variations in my own musical language on this sublime melody, which has become a kind of secret Catalan national anthem, not just since Pablo Casals, the great cellist, who ended all his exile concerts with this song since 1939. Even after intensive study of this melody, it remains mysterious and fascinating to me how perfectly the text's proclamation of happiness, in which more than thirty species of birds, large and small, celebrate the birth of Christ, harmonizes with the floating yet shimmering melancholy of this minor-key melody.

May my variations and different illumination of the original make the beauty of this old song once again accessible.

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