Following the sudden death of his wife of septicemia and the coinciding outbreak of the Second World War, Swiss composer Frank Martin (1890-1974) embarked on a ten-year period in which he
penned oratorios and other vocal compositions reflecting on death. He would go on to revisit this theme as he approached the end of his own life. According to musicologist Bruhn (Institute for
the Humanities, U. of Michigan), each composition reflected a different attitude, with the compositions of the WWII period dealing with death as the price for a long life of fatal passion, as a
fulfillment of a brief moment of glory, as the judge of personal conscience, as a power exhausted after a terrible war, or as a human boundary spiritually overcome and those of the later period
treating death as a matter of sinister wittiness, serenity, faith, or victorious spirit. She elaborates on how Martin articulated these themes both through the music and through the words of
the compositions. Annotation 穢2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
