Craft · 6 June 2026
Why a Withheld Cadence Is the Whole Point of Das Verlöschen
What is a withheld cadence, and why end a fourteen-song cycle on one? On the unresolved final chord of Das Verlöschen — and why some music should refuse to resolve.
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Listening · 5 June 2026
Music for Grief, Focus, and Sleep: A Classical Approach
How to choose classical music by what you need from it — cathartic music for grief, wordless orchestral music for focus, and slow, dark music for sleep. A guide to listening by intention.
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Craft · 4 June 2026
Building on Mahler: Orchestration, Terraces, and Weather
What does it mean to write orchestral music 'after Mahler'? On terraced climaxes, brass that arrives like weather, and the symphonic scope behind Nikolai Voss's symphonies.
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Craft · 3 June 2026
The Singer-Composer: On Writing for a Voice You Know
Why so few composers write for their own voice — and what changes when they do. On the rare tradition of the singer-composer and the dramatic baritone repertoire.
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Tradition · 2 June 2026
The German Song Cycle After Winterreise
A short history of the German song cycle from Schubert's Winterreise to the present — and where a modern baritone cycle like Das Verlöschen fits in the tradition.
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Listening · 1 June 2026
How to Listen to a 14-Song Cycle (When You've Never Heard One)
A plain-language guide to listening to a classical song cycle for the first time — what to expect, how long it takes, and how to hear Das Verlöschen the way it was built to be heard.
Read → Liner Essay · 28 May 2026
Inside the St. Voss Passion: Eighteen Movements of Descent
A movement-by-movement walk through the architecture of the St. Voss Passion — the Evangelist, the turba choruses, and the arias that stop the action to grieve.
Read → Liner Essay · 20 May 2026
The Making of Das Verlöschen
How a single four-note figure became a fourteen-song descent from a votive candle to the final guttering of the flame — and why the last chord refuses to resolve.
Read → Essay · 12 May 2026
Winterreise and the Lamp: On Inheriting a Tradition
Why a composer working today still reaches back to Schubert, Mahler and the German song-cycle — and what the long tradition of walking into the dark still has to teach.
Read →Free Booklet
The Das Verlöschen Listening Companion
A booklet of the cycle's texts and singing translations, a guide to its tonal descent, and the story of the lamp motif — free, in exchange for an email.