Being human.
Becoming human.

Every path through life begins with a departure. It is shaped by ideals, curiosity and the belief that one can change the world. It is a time of great visions, when possibilities seem boundless and courage is often greater than the fear of failure.

Beethoven’s music embodies this spirit like hardly any other. The Fifth Piano Concerto radiates self-assurance, freedom and creative power. The soloist does not appear as a virtuoso showman, but as the shaper of a musical world full of confidence and grandeur.

The Eroica Symphony takes this idea further. Originally dedicated to a hero, it ultimately tells of a human being who grows with his tasks. What matters is not outward triumph but the inner drive to follow one’s own path with determination and to hold fast to one’s ideals. Beethoven draws the portrait of a person who, through courage, energy and a willingness to change, keeps developing anew. Departure thus becomes the expression of an attitude that carries within it faith in one’s own creative power and the possibility of personal maturity.

No life runs in a straight line. Everyone experiences moments in which certainties shatter and the world changes irrevocably. Such a break in time is painful, but at the same time opens up the possibility of inner transformation.

Arnold Schönberg’s Verklärte Nacht tells of a deeply personal crisis. Guilt, fear and despair are transformed over the course of the work through compassion, love and mutual understanding. What at first seems dark and hopeless is finally bathed in new light.

Richard Strauss’s Metamorphosen takes this idea to another level. Composed at the end of the Second World War, the work is one of the most profound musical reflections on loss, memory and transience. The music mourns not only destroyed cities and cultures, but a world that has passed beyond recovery.

Both works thus span an arc from the hope of transformation to the painful experience of final loss. They show that times of upheaval change a person – sometimes by opening up new perspectives, sometimes by making all the clearer that the past is irretrievably gone. The Zeitenbruch thus becomes the turning point of becoming human.

In the course of his life, a person reaches a moment when the question arises of how a new path can emerge after crises, losses and disappointments. The breakthrough is not a return to an earlier state, but the ability to grow from one’s experiences and to meet life with a new openness.

Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is an expression of this inner change. Out of a world full of tension, doubt and existential questions, music gradually develops that seeks orientation and finally finds it. The path leads not to the triumph of the individual, but to the realisation that being human always happens in relation to others. Only in togetherness can the individual fully unfold.

With the use of soloists and chorus, Beethoven crosses the boundaries of the symphony and opens up a new dimension. The human voice becomes the emblem of a community that comes together despite all differences. Schiller’s words “All men become brothers” are far more than a utopian ideal – they stand for the hope that reconciliation is possible: with others, with the world and ultimately with oneself. The Durchbruch thus describes the moment in which a person finds himself without turning away from the world – borne by the insight that personal freedom and responsibility are inseparably linked.

At the end of the journey, the gaze turns beyond the visible. Questions of meaning, transience and hope accompany a person throughout life. In music a space opens up in which the transient enters into a relationship with the infinite.

Jean Sibelius’s Violin Concerto approaches this search from the vastness of the North. With its long-breathed melodies, Nordic clarity and passionate expression, it speaks of longing, solitude and the power of immediate feeling.

Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony carries this idea into a greater dimension. Its broadly spanned architecture of sound, its solemn calm and its deep inwardness make music an experience that points beyond the personal. Out of great musical arcs and moments of intimate recollection arises a world in which time and space seem to lose their limits. Bruckner’s music does not seek the answer in the moment, but opens a view onto something lasting – onto a dimension that connects human beings with the idea of eternity.

The season thus ends not on a full stop, but on an opening. The music leads to the very edge of what can be put into words and invites us to reflect on what binds people beyond their own lifetime – memory, faith, love and the longing for the infinite.