John Joubert's Four Stations On The Road To Freedom for SSAATTBB Soli or Chorus (unaccompanied) was composed for the 1992 season of Westmorland Concerts commemorating the 150th anniversary of the RoyalAcademy of Music.
These four prose-poems were written by the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, while a prisoner of the Gestapo for his complicity in the movement to rid Germany of the Nazi regime. They form part of thecollection Letter and Papers from a Prison, which were discovered and published after his execution by the Gestapo in 1945.
Each 'Station' is characterised by a key-word which the Joubert has matched withacorresponding musical interval. Thus 'Discipline' is characterised by a 4th, 'Action' by a major 7th, 'Suffering' by a major 2nd and 'Death' by a perfect 5th.
