Agnus Dei

Composers such as Krzysztof Penderecki, Rolf Liebermann, Gian Carlo Menotti and Alfred Schnittke were asked to take part in the ‘Mass for Peace’ planned for its world premiere at Easter in Rome in April 1992. Rolf Liebermann wrote the ‘Introitus’ and Penderecki the ‘Benedictus’. Alfred Schnittke opted for the ‘Agnus Dei’. After the premiere of the ‘Mass for Peace’ had to be postponed several times, Schnittke's ‘Agnus Dei’ was finally premiered on 11 December 1995 as part of the Nobel Peace Prize concert with the choir and orchestra of the Oslo Philharmonic under Vladimir Ashkenazy in Oslo. As the author Henning Köholt put it in ‘Klassekampen’, the ‘Agnus Dei’, which is deeply moving in its calm and inner devotion, has become ‘a still, solemn part of the mass’. ‘Calm emanates from it, and it creates the feeling of an ice-cold Russian winter's day, where peace spreads its wings.’