Human

A little more than seven decades after the Convention of Human Rights, German composer Helge Burggrabe expresses in beautiful, catchy, and often unsettling orchestral music some of the basic rights and freedoms that lie at the heart of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was created shortly after the Second World War. Human is, in effect, a soundtrack to our lives, a journey from birth to death. Its shimmering opening movement gives way to the angular, anxious “Needs” and the swirling, disorientating “Liberty”—Burggrabe never shying away from the harsh realities of a world without freedoms. “Love,” meanwhile, is as much about neglect as it is about human companionship, and “Home” describes both our need to put down roots and the devastating effects of homelessness. Burggrabe uses the orchestra in infinitely imaginative ways in his compelling musical portraits of our fragile existence.