Confessions (five songs for soprano and chamber orchestra)

Abrashev built his catalogue around large forms — five symphonies written between 1964 and 1997, two oratorios, concertos, three string quartets — but returned repeatedly to a solo soprano set against a small instrumental group, as in the Vocal Symphony in Eight Voices of 1971 and the Three Poems of Love of 1976. Confessions belongs to that line: five songs for soprano and chamber orchestra, a single voice carried over transparent scoring. Born in Sofia in 1936, he taught at the National Academy of Music, served as its vice-rector, and was Bulgaria's Minister of Culture from 2001 until 2005.