For the love of song

Initial steps

I received initial support from a prominent source: Professor Dr. Gerald Hüther, neurobiologist and brain researcher, was especially helpful. Armed with his statement and the encouragement of other academics, I approached my circle of colleagues. I already had a list of around 100 songs which I presented to selected singers. The first candidate to be asked was Christoph Prégardien who immediately agreed to participate and expressed the wish to perform Der Mond ist aufgegangen. A few days later, I told Birgid Steinberger about my idea and she spontaneously suggested Kindlein mein which she had just recorded with her own guitar accompaniment. This was already an encouraging start. And then a miracle took place during the next few months of 2008: all those requested to participate gave their consent and nobody asked about a fee. At this time, I still had no idea where and how a production of these dimensions could actually be realized. I already had almost 30 musicians on my list when my tenor colleague Andreas Weller and his pianist Götz Payer advised me to approach Carus-Verlag.

Dr. Johannes Graulich, managing director of the publishing house, displayed great enthusiasm for the concept while expressing doubts concerning the organizational and financial challenges, but three days later, I received the awaited call: the Carus-Verlag would take on the production. Further participant firms became involved: regional broadcaster SWR – in cooperation with the other ARD radio broadcasters – as the major partner for the numerous individual productions, the book publisher Reclam which would market the accompanying songbook and the German newspaper ZEIT Online as a media partner. After a year of preparatory work, all doors appeared to open and it became progressively easier to enlist additional colleagues and prominent singers such as Angelika Kirchschlager, Jonas Kaufmann, Kurt Moll, Peter Schreier and Christian Gerhaher among others: everyone suddenly wanted to take part.