Elegie an John Donne

In the winter of 2012/13, Viennese actor and voice artist Christian Reiner attracted much acclaim for his interpretation of Friedrich Hölderlin's "Turmgedichten". "Reiner is able to coax the music out of the words", German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung attested, while the Süddeutsche Zeitung stated that "the recitation of the poems resembles a performance dedicated to the human voice as a solo instrument".

In his second recording for ECM New Series, Christian Reiner explores verses written by Russian-American poet and Nobel laureate Joseph Brodsky (1940-1996). "Brodsky's 'Grosse Elegie an John Donne' is, in my opinion, a masterwork in the history of poetry," Reiner says. Brodsky's early, famous long poem is heard here in a translation by Alexander Kaempfe and Heinrich Ost and another by Karl Dedecius. "We are very fortunate to have these two marvelous German adaptions," Christian Reiner emphasizes. "Each of them inspired me to a unique way of speaking and a distinct rhythm."