100 Years’ lyre impulse: new sound – new listening experience by Christian Giersch
A hundred years ago the search for a deepened experience of sounds, intervals and tones led to the emergence of the new lyre. The Goetheanum will celebrate this anniversary from 29 July to 2 August 2026 with a conference and festival of the international lyre movement.
The artisan carpenter and sculptor Lothar Gärtner and the pianist and composer Edmund Pracht met at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland, in 1923. They were members of a ‘guardian group’ convened after the fire at the First Goetheanum and fully devoted to anthroposophical work. As they were searching for a suitable sound for eurythmy with children at the Sonnenhof, a school for supportive education in neighbouring Arlesheim, Switzerland, they discovered together the archetypal form of a new stringed instrument which they called ‘lyre’. But both its asymmetric form and the modern, chromatically arranged steel strings are closer to the development of the nineteenth century piano than to the instrument of antiquity. The newly gained delicate, intense and spherical sound provides a genuine new listening experience in the world of music.
Aura of selfless humanity
Thanks to Ita Wegman’s help the new instrument immediately found a home in anthroposophical centres for supportive education, where it was used to great benefit for decades, largely protected from the influences of twentieth century musical developments. It was therefore shrouded in an aura of selfless humanity, great spirituality but also of musical laity. More ...
A hundred years ago the search for a deepened experience of sounds, intervals and tones led to the emergence of the new lyre. The Goetheanum will celebrate this anniversary from 29 July to 2 August 2026 with a conference and festival of the international lyre movement.
The artisan carpenter and sculptor Lothar Gärtner and the pianist and composer Edmund Pracht met at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland, in 1923. They were members of a ‘guardian group’ convened after the fire at the First Goetheanum and fully devoted to anthroposophical work. As they were searching for a suitable sound for eurythmy with children at the Sonnenhof, a school for supportive education in neighbouring Arlesheim, Switzerland, they discovered together the archetypal form of a new stringed instrument which they called ‘lyre’. But both its asymmetric form and the modern, chromatically arranged steel strings are closer to the development of the nineteenth century piano than to the instrument of antiquity. The newly gained delicate, intense and spherical sound provides a genuine new listening experience in the world of music.
Aura of selfless humanity
Thanks to Ita Wegman’s help the new instrument immediately found a home in anthroposophical centres for supportive education, where it was used to great benefit for decades, largely protected from the influences of twentieth century musical developments. It was therefore shrouded in an aura of selfless humanity, great spirituality but also of musical laity. More ...
