Music reminds us what love is. If anyone has forgotten what love is, then they should listen to music," writes Adam Zagajewski in his undated diary "The Little Eternity of Art", a passionate plea for the indispensability of art in the modern world. Love is a big word, let's stick to closeness. Music demands the ears of the players and listeners. Togetherness, belonging requires hearing. We give a hearing, as the use of our language says.
At the beginning of December 2023, we swung into the Bruckner Year with the Bruckner Orchestra's "Tremolo" concerts in Linz's Redoutensaal. Since then, over the past nine months - the comparison with the duration of a pregnancy is purely coincidental - a wave of events, concerts, performances, gatherings, conversations and exhibitions has spread throughout Upper Austria and beyond, which could only arise in the diversity of what we have in common. Bruckner set us and continues to set us in motion - that's where the ear comes in again - which was condensed into a 24-hour celebration in 86400 seconds on his 200th birthday, September 4, 2024.
We began at midnight in the Mariendom with the global sound installation "Silent Echoes", a production of the Capital of Culture in cooperation with the Upper Austrian KulturEXPO, Ars Electronica and other partners. By this time, dozens of people were already listening to the poetic sound of melting glaciers and the vibration of the bells of Notre Dame. And the day ended again in St. Mary's Cathedral, the last two hours of which belonged to a quantum-physical sound event, the chamber music ensemble of the Bruckner Orchestra, who played the Schönberg version of the "Seventh", and finally the tremendous pull of the guitar ensemble NoFive. In between were major concerts in St. Florian and Ansfelden, events in Vöcklabruck, Steyr, Windhaag, Kirchdorf an der Krems and Kronstorf.
When I entered the Mariendom at 10 pm, I expected a few hundred people, but in reality there were many more. Before "BruQner", the first quantum physics concert in music history, the scientists gave a 25-minute introductory lecture on quantum physics in front of 3,000 people in Austria's largest church - and the atmosphere was like a soccer pitch. This fact alone leaves you speechless and creates space for possibilities that have been happening in such a dense concentration throughout the country for a year now.
The most sustainable investment of this year is that we have a variety of experiences of togetherness. The Bruckner Year can make it clear to us that arriving at the "we" is something that has to be dared and negotiated again and again. It's up to us to create space and closeness for ourselves!