Apocalypse as a Listening Meditation

Richard Schnell (speech) and Johanna Lamprecht (music) create an artistic approach to the Apocalypse of John in the form of a listening meditation.


Through immersive listening to the great imaginings of this central work of human history, the audience recreates them inwardly: the struggle for self-knowledge within the broad arcs of human development can be meditatively experienced through simple enactment on the inner stage of the soul. Richard Schnell speaks the text from the translation by Friedolin Stier; Johanna Lamprecht plays specially developed concept improvisations on the Campanula viola. The two artists believe that the possibility of experiencing the contents of the Apocalypse for a contemporary person lies in this listening, imaginative approach. In this way, the path of the Apocalypse, which encompasses the development of the earth within large cosmic contexts, becomes accessible. The piece premiered at the Goetheanum on New Year’s Eve 2022, during the night of remembrance for the fire of the first Goetheanum 100 years ago.

“Apocalypse—The Revelation by John” by and with Johanna Lamprecht and Richard Schnell was recently performed in the Niklauskapelle at Basel Cathedral. Future performances in Germany will be on September 23rd and 24th at the Lindengut in Dipperz (near Fulda), October 20th at the Christengemeinschaft Karlsruhe, and October 28th at the Rudolf Steiner Bookstore in Hamburg.


Johanna Lamprecht is a freelance violist and artistic project designer. She studied music in Hamburg, Bremen, Geneva and Neuchâtel; received a master’s degree from the University of Witten/Herdecke. Johanna combines research and performance, early and new music, improvisation and artistic project design, and is currently completing her doctorate on questions of cognition in listening


More Richard Schnell/Apokalypse

Translation Laura Liska
Image Richard Schnell (left) and Johanna Lamprecht (right); Photo: Christoph Arni

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