Hermann Nitsch

Hermann Nitsch is one of the most renowned representatives of the “Wiener Aktionismus”. He is a painter, master of ceremonies and stage designer as well as a composer and organist. Music forms an essential part of his comprehensive approach to art and is inextricably linked to his oeuvre. In The Theatre of Orgies and Mysteries, the central project of his oeuvre, music and sound are closely interwoven with dramaturgy, both in a functional and in a psychological way. Apart from The Theatre of Orgies and Mysteries Hermann Nitsch has also produced countless autonomous musical works, like e.g. his piece Island Symphonie, or numerous pieces of chamber and organ music. H

At Heilig-Kreuz-Kirche in Berlin, the artist will premiere a new composition for organ. Like his work as a whole, also this piece does not represent a completed unit but is the expression of a continuous working process, a flexible and mobile form whose major structures are pre-composed but whose completion in detail will be realised in improvised elements and variations during performance, a process that is also dependent on and influenced by the technical features and possibilities of the instruments involved. In Berlin, Hermann Nitsch will encounter the Hook Organ at Heilig-Kreuz-Kirche – a highly unusual and interesting instrument: built in 1870 in Woburn (Massachusetts) and brought to Berlin in 1993, it is the only US American 19th century organ to be found in a German church.