Biblical Songs Op. 99

The 10-lieder cycle, Biblical Songs op. 99, was composed in the spring of 1894 in New York City, where Antonín Dvorák lived for nearly two years. Homesickness and sad news of the death of composer friends, together with his own father’s poor state of health, may have prompted Dvorák to choose the intimate form and religious subject. All of the cycle’s texts derive from the “Book of Psalms” in the Old Testament. Klaus Uwe Ludwig’s moving organ arrangement, close to the original, is based on the Dvorák Complete Edition. In translating the text from Czech to German, Ludwig respected to the utmost the content and speech rhythms paramount in the original.