Alfred Schnittke's 'Seid nüchtern und wachet...' (1982–83), known as the Faust Cantata, sets the closing chapters of the 1587 chapbook Historia von D. Johann Fausten. The story of Faust's last hours is told by tenor and chorus, while Mephistopheles is given two voices – a wheedling counter-tenor and a contralto whose seductive tango accompanies the moment of damnation. The cantata later became the final part of Schnittke's opera on the same subject. The disc also presents three orchestral works: the solemn, ceremonial Ritual; (K)ein Sommernachtstraum, a playful and increasingly unsettling fantasy on a pastiche Classical theme; and the large-scale Passacaglia. Inger Blom, Mikael Bellini, Louis Devos and Ulrik Cold are the soloists in the cantata, with the Malmö Symphony Chorus and Orchestra conducted by James DePreist, while Leif Segerstam conducts the orchestral works.