I would never have composed with such a sense of responsibility as in this country, where I knew that the listeners did not expect elegant...

I would never have composed with such a sense of responsibility as in this country, where I knew that the listeners did not expect elegant subtleties from me, but a message, a little piece of hidden truth - if not between the lines, then between the notes.' When Petr Eben died in October 2007, this sad event was a major news item in the international music world. After all, the Czech Republic had lost a personality of international significance whose decades of musical activity had left a permanent stamp on the intellectual life of his country after 1989. Eben's choral compositions may rightly be called the outstanding examples of the Central European motet tradition in the 20th century. They were the result of Eben's skillful preservation of the medieval and humanistic heritage of his native country - a centuries-old, multi-layered tradition stamped by the coexistence of Czech, German, and Jewish culture - and his intense reflection on this inheritance in his music. The Saechsisches Vocalensemble enthralls the listener with benchmark interpretations.