Commissioned by J. Scott Ferguson and the Illinois Wesleyan Collegiate Choir, Lösch mir die Augen aus is a quiet, rich, and distant setting of the evocative poem by Rainer Maria Rilke. Darker textures dominate, with much of the principal melodic and motivic material being assumed by the alto section. At the piece’s midpoint, a quasi-hymn appears, slowly unfolding to a more hypnotic, static texture, eventually disappearing in a sustained and reverent conclusion.