LUCERNE FESTIVAL in Summer 2012 (8 August – 15 September) will focus on the theme of “Faith.” For centuries European composers wrote their works almost exclusively for the church, for liturgies, for holy feast days, for devotion—music that was meant to uplift. Even Johann Sebastian Bach declared that he created his music for the greater glory of God alone. But musicians thereafter began to follow a different path, directing their gaze no longer necessarily upward but rather inward. During the 19th century, music itself ultimately became a kind of religion. The concert hall developed into a temple of bourgeois art-worship, and composers came to be regarded as prophets, if not saints. In the summer of 2012 the Lucerne Festival will explore the relationship between music and faith. The spectrum will range widely across music history and denominational allegiance, from Mendelssohn’s “Reformation” Symphony and Verdi’s theatrical Requiem to Stravinsky’s Latin “Symphony of Psalms” and Schoenberg’s opera “Moses und Aron”— examples of religious self-assurance in the 20th century. The “artiste étoile,” Andris Nelsons, will conduct Beethoven’s Ninth and Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony. And as composer-in-residence Philippe Manoury and Sofia Gubaidulina have been invited, one of the most significant composers of our time: questions of faith and meaning are ever-present in her music. Over five and a half weeks, Lucerne will again be a magnet for legendary conductors and soloists—and of course for world-famous orchestras, from the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics to the Cleveland Orchestra and the Royal Concertgebouw. Claudio Abbado and the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA will complete their great Mahler cycle with the Eighth Symphony, which is based on the Pentecostal Latin hymn “Veni Creator Spiritus.” And the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ACADEMY will present works by Schoenberg and Ives right up to the present.