Ulla von Brandenburg stages 'Friede auf Erden' for Wiener Festwochen

'Thou shalt not make unto thee any image. For an image restricts, limits, contains what should remain unlimited and unimaginable' reads a choral piece by Arnold Schoenberg. Following a commission by the Wiener Festwochen, visual artist Ulla von Brandenburg teams up with actors, the Arnold Schoenberg Choir and musicians of the Klangforum Wien to stage seven vocal pieces by the composer at the Jugendstiltheater am Steinhof in Vienna. 

Friede auf Erden (Peace on Earth) is a synaesthetic journey through architecture, colours and moods. A choir – a single entity comprised of many voices – affords a material form to the music and its multitude of sounds. Well-versed in cultural history, yet playfully committed to the evanescent, Ulla von Brandenburg initiates a Gesamtkunstwerk as many different voices come together. A hint of utopian forms of community is sounded. For 'art is not to produce mere beauty, but to raise questions, to intensify disharmonies and complexity.'