TURNING POINT

The programme of the Herrenchiemsee Festival was devoted, in accordance with the occasion that prompted it, primarily to works in which musical expression is given to resistance to racism, dictatorship and war, together with the experience of a new democratic beginning.

The festival motto “Turning Point” took a broader view of this theme, however. It recalled the great democratic eruptions in Europe’s past, from the French Revolution and the wars of liberation against Napoleon via the liberal movements of 1848 all the way to resistance to communist Soviet dictatorship. It thus related at the same time to the actual basis of our freedom of religion and conscience – namely to the ethical utopia of what we paraphrase with the expression “Christian West”.