Three large works from Klaus Ospald's Leopardi cycle, a group of pieces named after Leopardi's canto La ginestra o il fiore del deserto (Broom, or the Flower of the Desert). They are written for chamber ensemble with live electronics, for large orchestra, and for choir, bass tuba, percussion and live electronics. Ospald describes his discovery of Leopardi's poetry as "radical and existential".

In Leopardi, Ospald says, he found for the first time powerful songs that also evoke despair at the aloof beauty of nature, "strong, breathless songs in simple images: of loss and speechless recognition." The performers are Collegium Novum Zürich, the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln, the WDR Rundfunkchor Köln, the Schlagquartett Köln and the tuba player Hans Nickel, conducted by Peter Hirsch and Rupert Huber. The disc is a production of Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln. Ospald was born in Münster in 1956 and studied composition in Detmold with Jürgen Ulrich and in Würzburg with Berthold Hummel, later also with Helmut Lachenmann. His works have been premiered in Darmstadt, Donaueschingen, Witten and Graz, and he lives in Würzburg.

The music is neither narrative nor dramatic. It asks the listener to follow incessant transformations of sound and to discover their formal laws. All three works favour low registers, especially of brass and woodwinds, reinforced by deep percussion. Deliberate quarter-tone deviations by players and singers create suspense and precarious balances, and Ospald uses enharmonic oscillations and beats to blur the sound or make it dazzlingly unreal. In Sovente in queste rive ... (2009/10) for large orchestra, the octave with which the piece rises is gradually stretched, blurred and coarsened.

Sopra un basso rilievo antico sepolcrale ... (2008/09), for mixed choir, bass tuba, four percussionists and live electronics, sets Leopardi's lament of a girl taking leave of her parents and friends; the verses are taken apart and recomposed in the listener's perception. With the live electronics, tiny changes of pitch make an interval of a third implode: "An unknown interval comes apart and displays a new quality," in Ospald's words. Così, dell'uomo ignara ... (2007/08), for chamber ensemble and live electronics, opens the disc at twenty-six minutes.

CD, Wergo WER 6767 2, released in 2015, 73 minutes.