LINDEN 21

On May 24th, Thom Luzʼs latest piece - WERCKMEISTER HARMONIEN - celebrates its world premiere as part of LINDEN 21 in the Apollosaal.

Together with the musician and arranger Mathias Weibel, Luz has developed a theatrical language in recent years that combines silence, movement, text and music into dense, atmospheric spatial scores. Now they can be heard for the first time as part of LINDEN 21.

WERCKMEISTER HARMONIEN focuses on the profession of piano tuner. This profession, which is mostly ignored by the public, is all about looking for a perfect intonation; just like the musician and music theorist Andreas Werckmeister tried to find a new order and laid the foundations for equal piano tuning.

The musical theater performance focuses on the human striving for systems of order and perfection. Questions that are no less topical today are raised as to what is right and what is wrong and how we can agree on a common basic tone. It deals with the primal human longing to discover an order in the chaos of creation, and the failure to then maintain this order in the actual present. The interrelationship between mood and music is made audible using compositions by Schütz, Werckmeister, Bach, Purcell, and Mark James, as well as Charles Ives's "Quarter Tone Pieces."

“'Werckmeister Harmonien' is a music theater creation about the profession of piano tuner. Theoretically, piano tuning is very simple: I tune a piano so that it sounds right. Behind this, however, there are very deep questions: What is right and for whom? What is an order that works for everyone? What is a keynote that everyone can agree on? What is possible with it? Where do I have to shift my frequency so that others still have space in the spectrum. You always think that it should be possible to tune a piano in fifteen minutes, but it's a philosophical process because you have to reconcile the incompatible,” says Thom Luz.

Thom Luz, born in Zurich, is a director, author and set designer and produces in the independent scene as well as at municipal and state theaters in Switzerland, Germany and France. He has been invited to the Berlin Theatertreffen several times, was voted Young Director of the Year by the specialist magazine “Theater heute” in 2014 and was honored with the Swiss Theater Prize in 2019. His productions tour Europe; he is also resident director at the Bayerisches Staatsschauspiel.

The protagonists are Annalisa Derossi, Mara Miribung, Daniele Pintaudi, Samuel Streiff and Mathias Weibel. The lighting concept and the costumes are by Tina Bleuler. They have realized several projects together with Thom Luz in the past.

LINDEN 21 includes the productions and projects of the program beyond the big stage and traces the diverse forms of contemporary music theater.