program - SVIZ

and optimistic, while in the three-part song-like second movement Mozart
uses a theme by Johann Christian Bach, paying homage to the composer,
who had passed away in January 1782. The main theme of the concluding
Rondeau is gentle and gracious.
Since his student years, Australian drawer, poet and thinker Michael Leunig
has published cartoons; during his 35 year career as a cartoonist most of his
work was published in the Australian newspapers The Herald and The Age. At
first he focused his attention on burning cultural, political and social issues,
then in 1969 he published a cartoon in which there appears a small man on
a duck, riding into the sunset with a teapot on his head. The duck and the
teapot appear in the groundbreaking cartoons of his life, although in various
periods other figures expressing Leunig’s view of the world also appear in
his work. In recent years, his cartoons have been commentaries on events in
Australia and throughout the world, again with a more political orientation.
From the very start his work has been controversial, bringing Leunig both a
great deal of admiration as well as antagonism. For his achievements and
influential contribution to Australian culture, Leunig was named as a living
national treasure of Australia in 1999.
Leunig has published numerous collections of cartoons, poetry with cartoons
and pure poetry, as well as collections of prayers. His work also inhabits the
fields of music, theatre, therapy, religion and spirituality. His view of life, as
expressed in his cartoons and texts, is explicitly humanistic but marked by
many philosophies; in it we find a Christian view of the world mixed with
a kind of pantheism. Leunig believes that man’s place is in nature – not in
the convenience of exploiting nature, rather in being capable of integrating
himself into nature. Contemporary society, which forces us into competition
and conflict, is the main cause of the spiritual poverty of people and
of ‘humanistic decadence’; the role of the artist/poet in society is almost
therapeutic. Art reminds people of their connection with nature, it liberates
them, gives them the ability to enjoy life and relieves suffering. Every living
being, and especially humanity, should care about what happens to other
living beings on the planet – otherwise life can become pure misery.
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This kind of thinking also appears in Leunig’s other projects, amongst the
most resounding of which in recent years have been Carnival of the Animals
(2000) and Carnival of the Human Animals or Carnival of the Humans (2007).
Both of these projects have come about in cooperation with Richard Tognetti
and the Australian Chamber Orchestra, and are derived from the music of
composer Camille Saint-Saëns, who composed his unusual work as a satirical
commentary on his pianistic colleagues. Carnival of the Animals was
written on holiday in Austria in 1886 for the composer’s intimate circle of
friends. Apart from the movement The Swan, Saint-Saëns did not allow the
work to be published during his lifetime because he believed that it was trivial
and could damage his reputation. With his verses and illustrations Leunig
brought the carnival closer to the Australian public by replacing the original
animals in Carnival of the Animals with animals characteristic of Australia.
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