One  could  take Wolfram Schurig's Ultima  Thule  for  five  ensembles,  a  work  whose  mere  instrumentation  in-vokes  that  utopian  place  which,  according  to  the composer, should automatically be the goal of any authentic  artistic  activity,  as  a  motto  for  Wolfram Schurig‘s  entire  compositional œuvre.  In  ancient Greece,  the  name  Thule  referred  to  the  northern-most part of the world, whose accessibility and actual existence, however, remained uncertain. Since Virgil,  the  term Ultima Thule  has  been  a  metaphor for the goal of all human endeavour, and since Ro-manticism  specifically  of  artistic  vision  (the  term was  later  also  appropriated  in  National  Socialist circles). In this work, Wolfram Schurig deals with the ‚paradox  of  the  artist‘s  creative  process‘,  namely the circumstance that the artistic imagination must attempt  to  envision  something  as  yet  unknown  to itself.  This  is  achieved  by  provoking  extreme  per-ceptual situations by pushing all musical formation in two different directions: dissolution within a mael-strom of extravagant events and fragmentation into individual components. It is not only Ultima Thule, which directly refers to a metaphorical geographical goal, but rather Wolfram Schurig‘s  entire œuvre  that  asserts  the  inalienable demand to reach uncharted territory as a composer, and always to be equipped to head for new shores. At the same time, one of its fundamental aims is to set  the  act  of  listening  in  motion.  Schurig‘s  music thus  demands  a  perceptual  stance  characterised by attentiveness, one that is prepared to follow the music in its transgression of boundaries.