Robert M. Helmschrott - Robert M. Helmschrott: Ad unum omnia – The Continuous Dialogue (Live) (2024)

The term "AD UNUM OMNIA / OMNIA AD UNUM" defines the theme of this double CD. Everything that has to do with One or All, with atom or infinity, remains the infinite dialogue throughout the history of mankind. Thus the works SALUT, OMNIA, SIMBOLO DI PACE, DIALOG MIT MOZART and INFINITUS can all be seen as part of the whole.

AD UNUM OMNIA places the organ as an instrument in a particular spotlight. It is taken out of its liturgical, ritual context and truly represents itself as the "queen of instruments". It unfolds from the quietest register to symphonic orchestral sonority. This fullness of sound, the magnificence, is intensified by the acoustically multidimensional space of the cathedral in which it is installed. Its sound not only demonstrates the magnificent, the all-encompassing, but also interprets the pleading and praying man, his cries of lament and accusation, his humility and arrogance, his life and death, it interprets man's superior reality, it can reflect the universe and - it summarises "faith and knowledge" and refers to reason.

The organ is a voice of the great past (in the field of organ music). In our present, it must also be a voice of the times, able to intervene in all issues affecting contemporary mankind and the societies in which they live. Its expressiveness is the quality of utterances that express emotional states and social affinity with the person addressed (the listener). It is the voice that lifts people out into the space of history.

When Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz died on 14 November 1716 at the age of 70, Court Councillor von Eckhart had an ornament placed on Leibniz's coffin depicting a One within a Zero and bearing the inscription "omnia ad unum" [Latin for "All to One"]. Born in Leipzig on 1 July 1646, the deeply religious scientist and inventor saw the representation of decimal numbers with the digits 0 and 1 and the associated arithmetic operations as a symbol of "creation constituted according to logical laws" (Hans Poser).