Conscience and Conviction

The year 2026 marks the anniversaries of the deaths of two figures whose lives could hardly have been more contrasting: Francis of Assisi (†1226) and Mao Zedong (†1976). Through extreme self-denial and a willingness to make personal sacrifices, one sparked a peaceful mass movement that, in turn, marginalized him even during his lifetime and drove him into internal exile. The other sustained a revolutionary upheaval lasting decades, for which he accepted the loss of millions of lives. Bridging such a stark contrast will certainly provoke critical questions that can hardly be answered in substance within the framework of a conventional concert program.

It is therefore clear from the outset that this interdisciplinary concert project – consisting of lectures, a panel discussion, a main concert featuring live projections of photo series, and a moderated late-night concert with an audience discussion – cannot be about morally equating two of the most extreme figures in human history. Rather, the aim is to explore the point where these extremes intersect, whatever the historical and personal circumstances may be. For there is no doubt that Francis and Mao are united by a common question – along with the fundamentalist intransigence with which they both sought to answer it – namely, that of social justice and empathy for the destitute. A second, less obvious parallel lies in how the published images of these two figures helped construct their respective public "images."

The social question is so old that it can be regarded as a constant in human history, and it is found in various forms in presumably all religions. Awareness of social injustice and compassion for the hungry and the cold have likely existed for just as long as the bitter experience of failing to eliminate this injustice at its structural root.

Francis was born into a wealthy family. When his compassion for the disadvantaged was stirred, he initially stole money from his father and gave it to the poor – not particularly praiseworthy behavior, to be sure. But shortly thereafter, he did everything in his power to possess less than anyone else; he begged and froze, was viciously mocked, and passed on the donations he received to those even more in need. He often performed hard physical labor in fields and on construction sites. Numerous monks and nuns cared for people with leprosy, but despite the well-known risk of infection, Francis also generously offered comforting physical contact. He may be famous for miracles whose authenticity is disputed, but from today’s perspective, the strength behind this lifelong dedication is just as unimaginable as the misery of the poor in those days.

Francis’s charisma was so great that others joined him, and within a few years a movement emerged that, through its radical emulation of Christ, became a threat to the established power of the Church. The Church opted against open reprisals and instead chose the tried-and-true strategy of incorporating the movement into its own structures. The movement thus became an order with professional management, making an economically viable foundation inevitable. Francis’s steadfast adherence to his principles continued to attract young people across Europe, though they were increasingly motivated by personal educational opportunities and only secondarily by a life of austerity and the practice of faith: The Order of the Friars Minor, despite the fierce resistance of its founder, contributed significantly to the establishment of universities in Europe. In any case, shortly after returning from the Damietta Crusade (and the futile attempt to convert Sultan al-Kamil), Francis turned his back on his own order and withdrew in resignation with his old faithful followers.

Francis was no social revolutionary and did not seek to overturn the social order. He merely took the teachings of Jesus Christ seriously in a fundamentalist sense, applying them to his own life. However, the Church’s co-optation of Francis – which had already exerted a moderating influence on his order during his lifetime – continued posthumously in the form of legend-building, magnificent architecture, and visual representations: Even in the fresco cycle in the upper church of the Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi – a work of artistic excellence attributed to Giotto – Francis is portrayed as the successor to Christ. The aesthetically exaggerated virtue of the saint thus obscures the unprecedented hardships of his life’s journey, which stands in sharp contrast to the reality of the Church. A depiction of Francis on a triumphal chariot, such as that by Franz Ludwig Hermann (ceiling fresco in the Franciscan Church in Überlingen), certainly constitutes propaganda in this interpretation.

Using a series of these and other culturally and historically significant depictions of St. Francis projected onto the screen, we trace the evolution of St. Francis’s public image over the past 800 years, set to music that contrasts with the Gregorian Versus alleluiaticus Franciscus pauper et humilis and Carlo Gesualdo’s six-part motet Franciscus humilis, arranged for soprano, oboe, tenor, viola, electric guitar, and bass.

In his St. Francis cantata, Jörg Herchet will certainly not cater to the traditional, comfortable image of the saint. In his composition (commissioned by the KlangForum Heidelberg), part of the cycle "Das geistliche Jahr" ("The Spiritual Year"), which began as early as 1978, the veteran composer and devout Catholic explores the elusive driving force of St. Francis’s faith and his personality. Herchet sets to music the text by his longtime librettist Jörg Milbradt with the stated goal: "…since St. Francis so completely shatters all notions of normality, I, too, would like to transcend classical boundaries in the sound itself" (email, February 13, 2025). Herchet has some experience in transcending spiritual limitations. Having grown up in the GDR, he viewed dodecaphony at the time as a compositional act of resistance against real-socialist control. He interprets Francis’s work in terms of its early Christian defiance – directed against the mindless hustle and bustle of everyday life and driven by a deeply human conscience.

Mao’s legacy defies imagination, at least as far as the death toll is concerned. Wikipedia cites 40–80 million people, though the data is uncertain. So why even draw a comparison with Francis, the personification of peacefulness?
At this point, Mao’s life story can be outlined only in the most general terms – a task that Prof. Barbara Mittler will undertake in her introductory lectures on both concert days. Yet his starting point was quite similar to that of Francis. Although born into a wealthy peasant family, Mao was confronted with unspeakable misery and hunger, exacerbated by the disintegration of the Qing Dynasty under the pressure of colonialism.
Influenced by his mother’s Buddhist beliefs, Mao acquired, through disciplined self-study, the tools of communist theory with which he analyzed the causes of the pervasive poverty. Despite the apocalyptic crimes he later committed, it must be noted that Mao’s original impulse was empathetic in nature: his totalitarian mindset arose precisely from an unconditional determination to tackle injustice at its root and eradicate it.

Mao’s projection of power culminated in a cult of personality that took on a life of its own. As he grew older, maintaining the image of the "Great Chairman" required elaborate retouching of every published photograph – retouching that was not limited to his appearance but often also erased the real context of the original shot and replaced it with a fictional one. Unedited photos of Mao exist primarily from his younger years – one example being the documentary photographs taken by Walter Bosshard in 1938. In a projected photo series, we trace the figure of Mao as he navigates the space between propaganda and reality.

The project also follows this approach on a musical level: Numerous propaganda songs were composed to glorify Mao, and we certainly do not want to spare our audience the sense of strangeness they evoke. In his composition (commissioned by KlangForum Heidelberg), the young Chinese composer Geng Shiqi juxtaposes excerpts from Mao’s own poems – some of which are remarkably beautiful – and other texts of his with the European humanist and Christian intellectual tradition. St. Francis’s way of life will also be highlighted in contrast to that of Mao.
This shift in perspective also characterizes Geng’s compositional style, marked by a perfect mastery of traditional European harmony and orchestral instrumentation, which can at any moment transform into a spectral musical language featuring highly complex overtone structures. Geng, whose work and life are characterized by extraordinary uncompromisingness, lives in Austria today.