Schoenberg: Moses und Aaron

Dale Duesing (Moses), Andreas Conrad (Aron), Ilse Eerens (Ein junges Mädchen/a young girl), Karolina Gumos (Eine Kranke/an invalid), Finnur Bjarnason (Ein junger Mann/a young man), Michael Smallwood (Der nackte Jüngling/the naked youngling), Boris Grappe (Ein anderer Mann - Ephraimit/another man - Ephraimit), Renatus Mészár (Ein Priester/a priest), Ilse Eerens, Hanna Herfurtner, Karolina Gumos, Constance Heller (Vier nackte Jungfrauen/four naked virgins), Hanna Herfurtner, Karolina Gumos, Constance Heller, Michael Smallwood, Martin Gerke, Dong-Won Seo (Sechs Solostimmen/six solo parts) Bochumer Symphoniker, ChorWerk Ruhr
Michael Boder

One of the greatest revolutions in the history of mankind happened around 3000 years ago: the transition from polytheism to monotheism through the prophet Moses. God revealed himself directly to Moses, instructing him in absolute truth. Moses was charged with leading the people of Israel to the Promised Land and escaping from Egyptian slavery. Moses came to embody the relationship between the human and divine truth. God’s call to Moses presented a new idea that exploded all previous religious concepts: ‘One God – unique, eternal, intangible, inconceivable’. Moses understands this concept, but is unable to express it, and therefore God appoints Moses’ brother Aaron as his spokesman. They are bound to fail: Aaron can only approach sharing the idea by compromising its meaning, whilst Moses is left to search fruitlessly for “the word I lack …” When Arnold Schönberg composed what he regarded as the dramatisation of his religious beliefs, he felt as though he was himself a Moses of the art world. “Endowed with a sense of mission”, Schönberg continually reflected on how “to make the unfathomable, fathomable”. A spectacular staging by Willy Decker - A new reference recording!