The music of the angels as a euphonious affair is a relatively recent notion. In the Old Testament, the polyphonic praise of God was imagined as an overpowering roar. Martin Smolka’s Rush (Hour in Celestial Streets) comes closer to this older concept with its after-work traffic jam, though he also takes a detour through microtonality to write entirely new harmonies.

On earth, light music celebrates a joyous resurrection in a very special ‘music machine’ in Mauricio Kagel’s Orchestrion-Straat.

With his Racconto dall’Inferno (tale from hell), Louis Andriessen sides both with and against Dante, submitting evidence that hell does have a sound and that anyone caught in its repetitive loops will find it difficult to escape.