Utwory na płycie:

• Prolog
• "...und die Erde war wüst und leer und Gott sah, dass es gut war..."
• Der Sündenfall
• Interludium I
• "Der unaufhaltsame Aufbau einer 'natürlichen' Rangordnung"
• Interludium II
• "Die Volksgemeinschaft ist eine Rettungs- und Not..."
• "Der Zweck heiligt die Mittel... den Krieg...!?"
• "Missverständnisse... Irrtümer... Wirren... die Offenbarung"
• Epilog: "Gott schuf den Menschen und setzte ihn in den Garten Eden, dass er ihn bebaue und bewahre..."

Der Turmbau zu Babel (The Tower of Babel)
Oratorio in 8 Parts
on texts by Friedrich Schiller, Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, Richard Wagner, Niccolo Machiavelli and Kurt Tucholsky

The text, which ranges from the idealistic thought of Schiller via Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Wagner to Machiavelli’s philosophy of violence, follows the conception of constructing a spiritual Tower of Babel. The piece’s stark contrasting of such different thinkers as Schiller and Nietzsche, can be understood as an element of composed linguistic confusion. On the other hand is a music that, with its deliberate discrepancy, even distance from the text, invites the listeners to reach their own interpretations. Certainly the use of particular idioms of musical language will lead to passages of historically-conditioned accessibility, which was intended by the composer. But these passages are simply islands within the work. The text is sometimes set – that is, illustrated – and sometimes treated at a distance from the music, in a form of commentary. The constant changing between such dramaturgical methods gives them the necessary capacity for language; to maintain one approach stubbornly would be tedious and schematic.

The oratorio Der Turmbau zu Babel was commissioned for the 25th anniversary of the Hanover New Music Days in 1983. It is dedicated to all those who were forced to give up their lives in the struggle for freedom, justice and dignified coexistence; all the undaunted who accepted great personal sacrifices in following an unswerving moral path; for Klaus Bernbacher.