An Elemental Elegy - Naturgewalten

Fire and water, earth and air: The four classical elements and the contrasts they represent will take the stage on July 17 and 18, as the Marburg University Choir under the direction of Nils Kuppe performs its grand concerts to conclude the semester.
The title work is "An Elemental Elegy" by Mårten Jansson from 2020. The piece addresses the elements not as subjects of powerful conflicts and clashes but as fragile aspects of nature threatened by humans. Fire is the focus in "Der Feuerreiter" from Hugo Distler's famous Mörike cycle. Water is at the center of Thomas E. Cornelius' "Stille Wasser Leben," a commissioned composition for the University Choir from 2018. Earth meets us in Frank Tichy's "Earth Song," and air or wind in Wilhelm Berger's "Sturmesmythe" or "The Cloud-Capp'd Towers" by Ralph Vaughan Williams based on a text by Shakespeare.
The program is rounded off with sacred compositions by Joseph Rheinberger, Johann Hermann Schein, Ernst Richter, and Orlando di Lasso. This represents half a millennium of choral tradition – featuring both well-known and lesser-known names. The sacred works also touch upon the contrasts of heaven and earth, and thus the notions of elemental primal forces, as in Richter's setting of Psalm 114, where the sea flees, the rivers turn back, and "the mountains skip like lambs."

The semester conclusion concerts will take place on Friday, July 17, 2026, at 8 p.m. in the Johanneskirche Gießen and on Saturday, July 18, 2026, at 7 p.m. in the Lutheran Parish Church of St. Marien Marburg. Tickets are available online from July 4 at https://uni-marburg.de/de/hosting/unichor or from July 13 to 17 at the tourist information center (Bahnhofstraße 25), as well as each day from 12 to 2 p.m. in the Mensa Erlenring. More information can be found at http://unichor-marburg.de and on Instagram: unichor.mr.
Gießen: admission free; Marburg: tickets 13€, reduced 6€