Katafalk

"The composition keeps the promise made in the programme. It reflects the contemporary quest for a musical language, the knowledge that there is no way back to the music of the past, and yet does not deny the longing for beauty and the accomplished forms of the past, above all the sense of melody. In Glanert’s symphonic metamorphoses, this is symbolised by a theme from Puccini’s Manon Lescaut... Those passages are compellingly embedded in the four-part structure. Another important feature is the rich use of instrumental colours and an eloquent, clearly modern orchestral style. A piece with a promising future." (Gabor Halasz, Die Rheinpfalz, 18 Mar 1998)

"The music is born out of silence. Drip-drop motifs coalesce into a haze of colours before splintering off again. With woodwind rhythms providing the backbone, the music becomes animated and more robust, stirred still further by violent discharges, until at the climax a melody steps forward, raised aloft like an icon into the sunlight... With four bars from the Intermezzo of Puccini's Manon Lescaut Glanert glimpses the ‘South’ – one of those beloved verbal images conjuring up the warm beauty of a sensuous, immediate yet deeply-felt art from an irretrievably lost past." (Stefan Koch, Mannheimer Morgen, 18 Mar 1998)