Between home and homelessness – Rilke in Switzerland: reading and discussion, plus music program

Together with Prof. Dr. Marcel Lepper, director of the Fondation Rilke in Sierre, Switzerland, Gunnar Decker presents his book “Rilke in Switzerland,” which will be published by Insel Verlag in September. In 1919, the author of homelessness sought something in Switzerland that he had never had: a home. Yet Switzerland was anything but a land of longing for Rilke. He perceived the Alpine republic as an “antechamber of freedom” and its inhabitants as “strange people, dense, hard, impenetrable.” Nevertheless, he managed to create a fragile home for himself in the tower house of Muzot in Valais, a temporary refuge where he completed his “Duino Elegies” in February 1922 and wrote the “Sonnets to Orpheus.” A life between everyday hardships, comical incidents, and the ultimate success of poetic expression.

The discussion and reading will be accompanied by a musical program featuring Israeli soprano Einat Aronstein and Israeli composer and pianist Udi Perlman, both internationally renowned and regular performers at numerous festivals. They will present excerpts from Udi Perlman's “Alphabet Cantata” (based on François Couperin, 2024-5), from “Four Songs after Jehuda Halevi” by Udi Perlman (2025), and “L'énigme éternelle” by Maurice Ravel (1914).

Dr. Gunnar Decker, born in Kühlungsborn in 1965, lives in Berlin as a journalist and author. He has published numerous books, including the biographies “Gottfried Benn. Genius and Barbarian” (2006), “Hermann Hesse. The Wanderer and His Shadow” (2012), “Francis of Assisi or The Simple Life” (2016), “Ernst Barlach. Der Schwebende” (2019) and “Rilke. Der ferne Magier” (2023). In 2016, he received the Heinrich Mann Prize for essay writing. In 2025, he was a scholarship holder at Schloss Wiepersdorf.

Prof. Dr. Marcel Lepper is director of the Fondation Rilke and honorary professor of modern German literature at the Institute of German Studies at Leipzig University, specializing in the history of literature, ideas, and science. He is chairman of the board of trustees of the Cultural Foundation Schloss Wiepersdorf and most recently published Goethe in America (2025) together with Kai Sina and David Wellbery.

Udi Perlman, composer and pianist, studied composition with Menachem Wissenberg and Yinam Leef at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, with Wolfgang Rihm at the Karlsruhe University of Music, and with Jörg Widmann at the Barenboim-Said Academy in Berlin. He is currently pursuing a doctorate in composition at Yale University.

Einat Aronstein is equally successful in opera, contemporary music, and early music. She was a member of the music theater ensemble at Theater Trier, has performed with the renowned Ensemble Modern, and regularly performs with various baroque ensembles, including her own ensemble, Arava. Her diverse engagements have taken her to Israel, Europe, North America, and East and Southeast Asia.

Gunnar Decker © privat, Marcel Lepper © Stephan Röhl, Udi Perlman © Kai Bienert, Einat Aronstein © Michael Pavia

Registration at www.denkmalschutz.de/anmeldung-nicolaihaus
Free Admission
Nicolaihaus, Deutsche Stiftung Denkmalschutz, Brüderstraße 13, 10178 Berlin

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