The instruments in this arrangement (in which the choral setting remains unchanged) are of Old Testament antiquity, their origins go back to ancient times and yet, because of the continual process of renewal and im- provement which they have undergone, they still remain the medium for the music of our time.

The sound world I have created with them, an evocation of biblical and mediterranean instruments, is designed to project the con- tents of Carissimi’s score into the world of our presentday sensibilities and to make the music tragedy of Jephta and his daughter palpable in its realism, its emotion and luminous energy.

Hans Werner Henze