Welcome

to the Website of the Twelve Cellists

Perhaps you know Michael Ende's charming book "Jim Knopf and the Wild 13" from your childhood days ?

"The Wild 13" was a band of pirates who threw the entire world into a state of fear and terror. But at the book's conclusion, after the 13 are vanquished, it becomes clear finally that, because of their inability to count properly, they have made an error: they were not actually 13 at all, but instead only 12! Now, why do you suppose we are telling you all of this? Simply because with us, it is precisely the reverse: we call ourselves "the Twelve Cellists", but in fact, there are 13 of us. This means that at each of our concerts and recording sessions, one of our member may not participate. That's a shame, really, but the number 12 is still, as in ancient times, a magical and sacred figure.

According to this symbolism, 12 is the figure of sunny abundance and formal perfection, for this number is imbued with both the Holy Trinity and the Earthly Four. A few examples:

• The Epic of Gilgamesh in divided into twelve tables;
• the Temple of Marduk at Babylon had twelve doors;
• the complete number of holy peoples reveals itself especially clearly with the Twelve Sons of Jacob, from whom arose the Twelve Tribes of Israels;
• there are twelve signs of the Zodiac;
• a year has twelve months;
• there were twelve apostles;
• the New Jerusalem has twelve gates;
  this list could be continued further.

As you can now understand: there are many good reasons to remain with the grouping of twelve!