Elisabeth Schimana
In die Sonne​ (Into the Sun)

<web>

That we are made of stardust is not merely a beautiful poetic image. In fact, we are composed of building blocks that were formed during the Big Bang or through nuclear fusion inside stars, to be hurled into space during supernovae. The human microcosm is directly connected to the macrocosm.

The initial inspiration for Elisabeth Schimana’s composition In die Sonne came from the book Die Sonne – der Stern von dem wir leben (The sun: the star we live by) by the Styrian astronomer Arnold Hanslmeier. While reading it, she conceived of the sun “as a gigantic resonating body for acoustic vibrations that propagate toward the sun’s interior and are reflected.” The title of the piece is to be taken literally, for In die Sonne invites the listener on an imagined journey to the center of this gigantic, luminous gas giant, without whose radiation there would be no life on Earth.