This video of Erlösung (for baritone and string quartet) documents the March 2023 premiere at Kilbourn Hall, Eastman School of Music, Rochester NY, and features performances by Christopher Dylan Herbert, baritone, and The Maple Quartet (Isabel Chen and Magali Pelletey, violins; John Crowley, viola; Gabriel Hennebury, cello).

Erlösung was composed for the film Ex Libris, a documentary by Melissa Hacker which traces the harrowing events of the Second World War through the experiences of her grandfather, Marco Birnholz. The song uses two texts: an excerpt of Birnholz's diary from 1941 is juxtaposed with a poem by Josef Weinheber written in 1942. The texts and English translations

Schlaflose nächte und schreckliche tage verzehrt unsere existenz und wir erhofften den tag der erlösung.

Sleepless nights and fearful days consumed our existence and we awaited the day of salvation.

- Marco Birnholtz, 1941

Vielleicht, das einer spat, wenn all dies lang vorbei,
das Schrekliche versteht, die Folter und den Schrei –

Perhaps one day when all this is long past
someone will understand the terrible thing it was, the torture and the cry

- Josef Weinheber, 1942