Klingende Toleranz/ Various - Klingende Toleranz

On March 14, 1926, a special concert was held in the Leipzig community synagogue at the corner of Gottsched and Zentralstrasse. Leipzig citizens and guests, regardless of their faith, were invited to gather their own impressions of the Jewish culture. They were to be given the opportunity to meet each other, discover commonalities, and experience differences as a source of mutual enrichment. The organizers sought primarily to appeal to those who had perhaps never before in their lives entered a Jewish place of worship and had reservations. Of course, the synagogue concerts were also intended to attract a wide audience, the doors were opened to all, not only community members. The big names like Bach, Handel, and Mendelssohn were combined with masterpieces of synagogue music. The Leipzig audience suddenly heard compositions by Salomone Rossi, Louis Lewandowski, and the cantor Samuel Lampel. This album performed by Leipziger Synagogalchor featuring many guests recreates the program of this concert and thus brings a piece of Leipzig's city history back to life- from a time when music of Jewish and Christian origin was brought together, then performed by a choir beyond confessional boundaries. The power of music thus unites, thereby rewarding participants and listeners for their openness and tolerance with wonderful discoveries. With the recording of this concert program, Ludwig Bohme and the Leipziger Synagogalchor would like to show the sonorous results of this uncomplicated and pragmatic cooperation between Jews and Gentiles- a "resounding tolerance" which is still able to inspire today.