Sound of silence I

Abbot Urban Federer OSB, Impulse
Emanuele Zanforlin, violin
Elia Seiffert, piano

Johann Sebastian Bach - Sonata No. 3 in E major for violin and piano, BWV 1016
Arvo Pärt - Fratres
Ludwig van Beethoven - Violin Sonata in G major, No. 10, Op. 96

Arvo Pärt, the world's most frequently performed living composer, combines spiritual depth with tonal simplicity in a unique way. His "Tintinnabuli" style is characterized by silence, faith and the fusion of music and prayer. Pärt seems to translate silence into sound with his music. Like Pärt, Bach - who needs no great introduction - was able to create a musical universe from just a few notes, which was always closely linked to faith and church music.

How do you find silence? How can sounding music be silence at the same time? Meditating on the meaning of silence, the Abbot of Einsiedeln Abbey, Urban Federer, leads through the concert in dialog with the music. The music will be performed by two young, internationally active musicians who have won numerous competitions and are pursuing varied careers as soloists and chamber musicians. A particular focus of their artistic work is the rediscovery of forgotten composers. This passion has already led to several world premiere recordings.

This concert is part of the "Kloster Klang Einsiedeln" series.
Kloster Klang Einsiedeln is much more than a concert series. It is a place of human and musical encounters in Einsiedeln Abbey; 2026 under the title "Sound of Silence". Four concerts in June will revolve around this theme and look at it from the perspectives of spirituality, art, science and community. Four perspectives that also represent the way of life of the monastic community at the monastery. The events open up insights into new worlds and bring the history of the thousand-year-old Einsiedeln monastery to life. Meet inspiring people, marvel at rarely exhibited monastery treasures and Benedictine arts and crafts and listen to wonderful music from 500 years of musical history, performed by renowned ensembles.

In the 9th century, St. Meinrad withdrew as a hermit into the silence of the "Dark Forest" in order to have more time for God and prayer. The Einsiedeln monastery was finally founded in 934 on the site of his hermitage.

What does silence mean in a world full of noise? Even a thousand years after the monastery was founded, people are still searching for silence and its meaning. Is silence the absence of noise or an inner state of mind rooted in mindful presence? Do we have to search for silence or is it already within us? The Kloster Klang series of events follows the question of the "sound of silence".


Note: This text was translated by machine translation software and not by a human translator. It may contain translation errors.