Completed in 2012, Post Silentium was commissioned by the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden as part of Lera Auerbach’s Dresden residency as Capell-Compositrice 2011/12.

The work makes motivic and gestural reference to the opening movement of Auerbach’s Requiem, which was premiered on 11 February 2012 in Dresden’s Frauenkirche and written to mark the 67th anniversary of the destruction of Dresden.

Whereas the Requiem calls upon two boy sopranos, countertenor, bass and large chorus to carry the Latin Requiem text, expanded by the words “Amen” and “Alleluia,” Post Silentium allows the orchestra alone to bear the weight of mourning, resonance and transfiguration.

• After Silence A title that suggests sound emerging from, or standing in the aftermath of, silence.
• Dresden Requiem The work refers motivically and gesturally to the opening movement of Auerbach’s Requiem.
• Instrumental Mourning The vocal and choral ritual of the Requiem is transformed into orchestral gesture.

Post Silentium belongs to the Dresden constellation of Auerbach’s works: a group shaped by remembrance, sacred space, historical trauma and the attempt to find musical language after devastation.

Its orchestration is large, highly colored and ritualistic: triple winds with doublings, full brass, timpani, percussion, harp, piano, celesta, harpsichord and strings. The result is not simply a reduced echo of the Requiem, but a separate orchestral meditation in which the absence of voices becomes central to the expressive meaning.

The work stands after silence — not as silence’s negation, but as the fragile sound that follows it.