Programme Guide

According to Hans Küng, the political and ecological challenges of the future are to be mastered only with a basic consensus spanning all cultures. Weltethos is the vision of this arrangement, based on the common values of the world religions. These are conveyed in texts about Confucius, Moses, Mohammed, Buddha and Jesus as well as Hindu writings. The result should, according to Küng, be no “religious potpourri”, but a universal message of nonviolence, justice, truthfulness and partnership.

The composer Jonathan Harvey (1939–2012) was, in the words of Simon Rattle, “probably the most spiritual of our British composers”. Moreover, his knowledge of Indian, Chinese and Arabic music made him uniquely suited for this project. Harvey was a good friend of the Berliner Philharmoniker and the Rundfunkchor Berlin ever since the musicians gave the German premiere of Harvey’s Madonna of Winter and Spring under Rattle’s direction in 2006.