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ORATORIO FRANCESCANO
"This composition was born during a time of change in my life, namely my turning away from rock music. I was lacking a sense of new orientation. Until this point, my life had consisted of an easygoing, luxurious superficiality. The progress of "serious" contemporary-music was still foreign to me and actually everything "classical" only seemed like an annoying reminder of my time at the conservatory. With this mindset, I encountered the ideas of St. Francis of Assisi, and I did so with much enthusiasm. From that point on I moved to the mountains and valleys of South-Switzerland, where I tried to live as closely to his teachings as possible. And the world really did carry me...This fulfilling experience simply flowed into my composition, almost by itself. Neither does it have an ongoing structure, nor was it influenced by a certain formal conception. The reason was only my motivation, the intention to experience and to convert praise into music, just in the spirit of the Aegideus (one of St. Francis of Assisi's first companions), who once said: "Nobody should pronounce the name 'Franziskus' without experiencing great sweetness while doing so.
My outline models consisted of three central texts, which St. Francis had written: ‘Il Cantico delle Creature’, the ‘Salutatium Virtutum’ and the ‘Preghiera a San Damiano’, as well as my own interpretation (in Franciscan tradition) of the 'Preghiera del Signore'."
Scholarship by the Burger Community of Bern, Switzerland.
Premiered in Magadino, Switzerland.
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