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'You know,
for me
celestial bodies
have had,
ever since
my early childhood,
a really uncommon
and extraordinary
meaning.
I often stood
and looked towards
the heavens above,
not very consciously
and almost
dream-like.
How could there be
so many?
And I thought to myself:
What is the significance
of each of these bodies;
do people live on them?
How do they relate
to the earth?'*
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Paul
Hindemith's Harmony of the World
Schneider-Siemssen's inspiration for this novel concept,
whereby the stage becomes not only a mirror of life but a place for theatrical
explorations of man's relationship to the cosmos, came from Paul Hindemith
and Carl Orff, two of the most important German composers of the
20th century. Harmony of the World is one of Hindemith's lesser known works that even today is "waiting to be discovered". Yet it marked a milestone in Schneider-Siemssen's career: it was his first premiere (1957) as a stage designer for the Theater im Goetheplatz in Bremen, Germany where he spent eight years of his early career, and even more significantly, it was the work that first sent him into orbit, so to speak:
"..for the first time, I had a cosmic vision for the stage. For the ending of the opera, I set up a double ellipse that moved... a symbol of the solvent gas, that dissolves into the cosmos... and each shape had its' own star ... that resulted in a strong picturesque impression of an unearthly process.
Hindemith was very impressed. The double ellipse made an understandable impression on him as a 'Kepleresque thing' - and it does everything by moving... a cosmic movement like in space ...
He then wrote me a very beautiful dedication: 'For Günther Schneider-Siemssen, to whom the world owes the correct harmony!'
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