"Smacks of Indian Summer Satiety
The Jollity of spring has been gone long ago and the exuberance of hot summer days has brought a plethora of thoughts and sensations to cope with. Suffering from a lack of interesting things to see, hear, or do, while beeing not in the mood of "doing nothing" we drift into a strange unbalanced mood coming from a very balanced situation: the autumnal equinox. And this transition from the active to the passive part of the year is accompanied by that affection called 'ennui'.
There are many definitions for the originally French term 'ennui': "A feeling of weariness and dissatisfaction arising from a lack of interest; boredom." or "A feeling of exhaustion, disgust; dullness and languor of spirits, arising from satiety or want of interest; tedium." or "A mixture of listlessness and willful melancholy". But most of these definitions emanate from the prevailing protestant labour ethics which pervade our dictionaries. In 1971 Georg Steiner wrote: "The motif I want to fix on is that of ennui. 'Boredom' is not an adequate translation, nor is 'Langweile' ...; 'la noia' comes much nearer... Baudelaire's use of 'spleen' comes closest: it conveys the kinship, the simultaneity of exasperated, vague waiting -- but for what? -- and of gray lassitude".
These remarks lead us to another portrayal of 'ennui' as a certain mindset of the Intelligentsia in the 18th and 19th century. Being driven by the breathtaking tempo of industrial and sociological development mostly creative people had chosen this tedious mood as their refusing counterpart. This active withdraw from life as a form of protest recurred within many juvenile generations afterwards. The forms may have changed, but the habit is still the same. And it always seems to be an evidence of intelligence to rest a moment before jumping into future." (From the Stadtgruen's release page)

"Stories In Front Of Your Eyes
In modern society, people more and more tend to see technology as something given. Because of the huge degree of specialization they are unable to understand the manufacturing processes and therefore unable to connect to any of the things they eat, wear or use in everyday life. Many of them are involved in production of one certain item, but they do not care whether they are getting their money for producing a tire or a coffee cup.
Since nobody cares of his result, when other people buy these coffee cups and put them into their offices nobody regards it as an item of personal value. As there mostly remain no further signs of human individuality but these functional objects no one is trained to see, people get even more depressed about their work - a necessarily big part of their life - and get the feeling of being replaceable, small parts of a system that somehow developed to work automatically.
As there is no new land to be discovered on earth and no further space to escape to, there is no other way of improving our quality of life than by discovering our immediate surrounding. We will have to take a close look at all the details of urban and global living and decide, which of the systems of our predecessors work and which have to be built anew. Most important of all, we will have to understand that all social systems are just based on convention and we are able and obligated to change them.
Dedicated to my grandparents" (From the Stadtgruen's release page)

"White Plains, Comfort Rooms
When winter draws a deep cold breath over fields and forests the human adjourns to his sitting room, retiring back to warm places and looking at the world outside. The glass window is the required artificial separation that lets us survive from the mortal power of coldness. Behind the window we can build up our private little universe with plants and flowers which need southern heat normally. Within this little world everything is put in the right cultivated order, everything is all right.
Building up a secure room we can lean back and contemplate the course of the world, the well-stabilized harmony between nature and culture, which we have built up. But the precondition for this little paradise is separation. In order to conserve the state of life, securing our spirit conceives new separating techniques again and again. With glass we may construct a winter garden to conserve summer state, with photos and videos we may remember past times and with recording techniques we even may hear formerly faded sounds. The conservative attitude always looks back in order to conserve a certain state of life, to stop the course of world.
But life with its seasonal eclipse always goes ahead. Janus, the ancient deity of transition and passage dominates the brumal season. He has two faces, one looking back and one looking forward. The first has a contemplative and conservative mindset and the second a planning and visionary one. At the conservatory we may learn something about right techniques and a former way of living. But we should realise it as our everlasting challenge for our future.
Contemplation is the condition for vision. So join our musical invitation and lean back in contemplation to draw breath for an exciting new year." (From the Stadtgruen's release page)