Those Who Speak In A Faint Voice is a multimedia staged concert with an anti-death sentence theme, first performed in
Basle in 2001.
The
concept seeks to convey its theme both emotionally and appellatively: it wants to show, not to judge. It's not about whether the people on death row are guilty or innocent. It's about the death sentence – about the question of whether we still tolerate such revenge and retribution, or whether we want to take another view of guilt and atonement. Music and video, sound and light work together, making audible the faint voices of people condemned to death, awaiting their execution.
The video was assembled by Andrea Molino from material shot by Oliviero Toscani in American death row jails. Those condemned to death speak about their memories and dreams, about their life and feelings. So the access to the theme is emotional: the film-like character of the video screen fosters a sense of proximity, yet the medium also creates distance. The music reacts very exactly to these images, and to the voices. It is played by a
live ensemble together with a speaker/singer (
David Moss) who recites texts by Shakespeare, Hugo, Gibran, Fromm and Auden.
An
internet web site was created for the events around the Nuremberg production. It includes extracts from the death row videos.