Ironically, given its title, there are almost too many stories to tell in Where Language Ends, an immersive new exhibition of work by Ross Birrell and David Harding, which opens a week today at the Talbot Rice Gallery in Edinburgh.

So much so, it's difficult to know which one to pull out as the ace in the pack.

There's even a story in the title itself, which is taken from Rainer Maria Rilke's poem To Music. Like the English Romantic poets, Keats and Shelley, who were born almost a century before Rilke (but who also figure in this exhibition), the German poet constantly strove to reconcile beauty and suffering, life and death into one written philosophy.

A key installation in Where Language Ends is called 24 January 2014 'To Music' By Rainer Maria Rilke Is Thrown Into The Rhine, Dreilandereck (2014). Part of a series of works by Birrell called Envoy, in which works of poetry, politics and philosophy are symbolically 'gifted' to certain locations, this is significant because Dreilanderick is the meeting point of the borders of France, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Rilke famously described music simply as a threshold space, the place "where language ends".

However, most visitors to this show will find it impossible not to be drawn in by the story of Wojtek, a Syrian brown bear who spent his twilight years in Edinburgh Zoo after 'fighting' with Polish troops during the Second World War. Where Language Ends features two bear sculptures by Harding, based on the story of Wojtek. But the Glasgow-based artist insists these haunted-looking life-sized creatures are not sculptures of Wojtek, although they are based on Syrian brown bear poses. Wojtek last starred in an exhibition which Harding and Birrell held at Kunsthalle Basel in Switzerland this time last year called Winter Line.

"Ironically, the Syrian brown bear is extinct in Syria," Harding says. "You could easily draw parallels between Syria today and the fate of its native brown bear. The sculptures in this exhibition are not brown, but white. They're kind of ghost-like, with an imploring look."

Total immersion in music and stories lies at the heart of this beautifully thoughtful exhibition, which will see the elegant spaces of Edinburgh University's gallery filled with coloured light and sound. For both Birrell and Harding, this immersive experience is all about exploring the thresholds between music and politics, poetry and place, composition and colour.

Wojtek is the poster boy who ushers viewers into the gallery. The 23-stone beer- and honey-swilling bear, whose mother was shot when he was a cub, was adopted as a mascot by Polish soldiers in 1942 as they marched through Iran. To allow Wojtek (whose name translates as "he who loves battles") to join in the Allied invasion of Italy, he was 'enlisted' as a Private in the Polish Army. Wojtek went on to 'fight' at the Battle of Monte Cassino. After the war, he came with his unit to a camp near Duns in Berwickshire before being dispatched to Edinburgh Zoo, where he spent a somewhat lonely life,- only perking up when he heard the Polish language spoken. He died there in 1963.

Harding recalls seeing Wojtek as a boy and then as a young art student at Edinburgh Art College, having been dispatched to the zoo to make drawings. In 1973, he was commissioned by the architect behind a new hotel next to the zoo to make a statue of Wojtek. When the hotel changed hands 18 years later, the statue was moved to London's Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum.

Harding is the man many single out as the quietly focused force behind the 'Glasgow Miracle' which has seen a generation of artists, including Douglas Gordon and Martin Boyce, who studied on Harding's Sculpture and Environmental course at Glasgow School of Art (GSA), rise to international art stardom and scoop up Turner Prizes by the barrow-load.

Harding's decade-long collaboration with Ross Birrell emerged from a firm friendship the two men formed at GSA. Harding retired as head of Sculpture and Environmental art in 2001, while Birrell still teaches there. Typically self-effacing, when I spoke to both artists last week, Harding was insistent that although the story of Wojtek captures the attention, it is not the story of Where Language Ends. Birrell, however, insists that the "whole story is wrapped up in the bear".

The idea that spoken or written language can never fully articulate what an artist is trying to convey in his or her work is pivotal to this exhibition. In Where Language Ends, you can immerse yourself in Birrell's film of Sonata, a piece of music he developed over three years using lines by poets John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Gregory Corso. It says so much more than I can here in this written piece on the whole exhibition.

With Harding and Birrell, it is always the thinking that goes into making art which is most important. Although there is a big age gap between them, a shared hinterland of reading, music and politics has clearly led to a life-enhancing partnership for both men.

Ross Birrell & David Harding: Where Language Ends, Talbot Rice Gallery, Old College, South Bridge, Edinburgh (0131 651 4784, www.trg.ac.uk) from March 14-May 2. Next Saturday at 11am, Birrell and Harding will be in conversation with Talbot Rice Gallery Principal Curator Pat Fisher in the gallery; see website for details