Is it already too late to save our planet?
Is there still hope?

ZEITEN:W:ENDE – how dare you?

The effects of man-made climate change are now undeniable. Natural disasters are becoming more frequent all over the world - extreme droughts, floods and wildfires show just how seriously our planet is in trouble. Confronted with the effects of these developments, humanity is in the abyss and many are asking themselves helplessly: is it already too late?

In Olivier Messiaen's "Quatuor pour la fin du temps", an angel proclaims the end of time - just as urgently in our context as the Fridays for Future movement makes it clear that we have stolen the dreams and future of our youth. Even if some of the young activists are still optimistic, Jonathan Franzen recognizes: We have to admit to ourselves that it is too late to save this world. We simply don't have any more time to prevent the climate catastrophe.

Olivier Messiaen found hope and the courage to carry on primarily in his religious faith. At the same time, his music is characterized by a close connection to nature - his birdcall quotations, for example, are famous - which opens up an interpretative link to the climate crisis.

The Archangel announces the coming catastrophe, birds fly lethargically above the abyss, rainbows and firestorms swirl and, finally, rage and despair descend upon us when the ensemble performs the "danse de la fureur" in unison. The song cycle "I never saw another butterfly" by the American Lori Laitman sets poems by children who were interned in the Terezin concentration camp to music. We hear about the very last butterfly that Pavel Friedmann saw in 1942 - "that butterfly was the last one. Butterflies don't live in here, in the ghetto." or follow Franta Bass on a last walk through the garden. At the end is "The old house" - "deserted, rotting in silence".

We think of Greta Thunberg's warning about the extinction of species and her words: "I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. [...] I want you to act as if the house is on fire. Because it is."

Confronted with all this suffering, we ask ourselves, like Messiaen and Jonathan Franzen, what hope can be drawn from at all? Are there still solutions?

The subject matter is too complex to provide concrete answers. But we are at least pleading for more awareness and calling for more closeness to nature and nature protection. Because, like Franzen, we are convinced: "As long as we have something we love, we also have something to hope for!"

“Declaring total war on climate change, only made sense as long as it could still be won. As soon as we accept that it has already been lost, other forms of action become more important.”

– Jonathan Franzen

PROGRAM

Kaija Saariaho	changing light	2002
Olivier Messiaen	Quatuor pour la fin du temps	1942
Lori Laitman	I never saw another butterfly	2017
Yu Kuwabara	Seven Studies about Image	2018
Veit Erdmann-Abele	Pensieri brevi – Vier Rezitative	2019
Elis Hallik	to become a tree	2018

Moritz Schneidewendt	Electro-acoustic Soundscape
Katrin Szamatulski & Moritz Schneidewendt	Concept

Quotes and texts by Greta Thunberg, Luise Neubauer, Jonathan Franzen

Premiere — 04/11/2021
Hermann Haake Stiftung / Stadtkirche Ludwigsburg

„I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day.“

– Greta Thunberg

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