PETER RUZICKA (b.1948): Benjamin Symphonie / Elegie. Lini Gong; Thomas E. Bauer; Kinderchor der Oper Frankfurt; Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Peter Ruzicka, conductor.

Description: With BENJAMIN, Peter Ruzicka presents his own subjective, musical "reenactment" of Benjamin's thoughts and life. A narrative unfolds in seven stages which reflects Walter Benjamin's flight in suggestive images in which dream sequences and reality interweave. Benjamin's encounters with Hannah Arendt, Bertolt Brecht, Gershom Scholem and Asya Lacis - the woman who tried to persuade him for many years to embrace historical materialism - became the cornerstones of this rhetorical arc. "These stages", says Ruzicka, "may represent a unique life story in the 20th century, whereby in view of the devastation of that century, it is inevitable that the wounds that are thought to have healed are made to bleed again".