Chesky: Songs for a Broken World

What attracted me to David Chesky’s Songs for a Broken World was the fact that three of its six movements honor Sophie Scholl (1921–1943), one of my heroes. Scholl played a key role in “The White Rose,” a resistance group formed by German students opposed to the Nazis during World War II. The staircase at the University of Munich where she tossed anti-Nazi leaflets down to the atrium below is, for me and many others, hallowed ground. For this act of courage, she and her brother Hans were guillotined. Chesky’s heartfelt cycle touches on other examples of human-made broken-ness in our time: Vietnam (“Remembrance for the Victims of the Vietnam War”), the Middle East (“Sacred Child of Aleppo”), Covid-19 (“For Our Own”). Its impressionistically layered textures and hypnotically slow unfolding create a dreamscape of mourning through which we can, if we choose to, perceive what Beethoven called “a plea for inner and outer peace.” And perhaps recognize our duty to fix what is broken. Outstanding work from orchestra and chorus, from Lemper in “The Names of the White Rose,” and from Diaz and Milisavljevic´ in “For Our Own.” Excellent sound.