Text im Klang #7

Klaus Kastberger Introduction to the work of Friederike Mayröcker

 

Luca Bardelle New Work (2026, world premiere)

Forrest Moody New Work (2026, world premiere)

Dilay Doğanay New Work (2026, world premiere)

Joanna Wozny New Work (2026, world premiere)

 

 

Schallfeld Ensemble

Elisa Azzarà flute

Szilárd Benes clarinet

NN piano

Lorenzo Derrini violin

Myriam García Fidalgo cello

„Text im Klang" is already looking forward to its 7th edition this year. From the very beginning, the project has seen itself as a laboratory, where medial interlacings with a focal point on impulses are put into practice. In specific, literary texts as well as the active exchange between composer and author hereby provide the initial impulses for new compositions. The intention of the project hereby does not pursue a classical setting such as words to music, nor a simple translation of the words with voices, nor tonal representations of the texts – what is called for is rather texts functioning as movens with their, for example, rhythmic and syntactic qualities, in its tonal coloration, its timbre, in its atmospheric or thematic density, as semantic abutment, ... Hereby the experimental setup of „Text im Klang" has always been slightly modified throughout the years: in 2014 and 2016, preselected texts by various Austrian authors served the composers in various pairings as a source of inspiration; in the performances, music and text were sometimes intertwined, the latter read by actors or the authors themselves, sometimes being integrated directly in the composition itself live or e.g. as an edited or processed recording. In 2018 in turn, the focus for all composers was put on one specific short text, in 2020, both text and music were created from scratch on a jointly developed theme. In 2022 Ferdinand Schmatz´s „das gehörte feuer. orphische skizzen“ was the starting point for the new compositions, which partly included fragments of the text both in acoustic and visual ways aside from other parts being read by the author, and in 2024 Elfriede Jelinek agreed that any of her numerous texts could function as impulse and starting point for new musical works, which that time were written for the very classical line-up of Schubert´s Forellenquintett.

 

Like in former years, with Schallfeld Ensemble also the musicians of course play an important role in the project, being included in the process from the very beginning and standing in close connection specially with the composers for the realization of their new works. Throughout the different editions Schallfeld Ensemble has hereby presented itself in various line-ups.

 

In 2026 five years will have passed since the death of one of the Grandes Dames of Austrian literature, Elfriede Mayröcker. With unwavering curiosity, she worked until the very end on a multi-award-winning body of work comprising over 120 books — with numerous references to music, visual arts, philosophy, and poetry. Its magic, visual power, and poetic radicalism had a decisive influence on German-language literature. Klaus Kastberger, who has worked and published on her oeuvre, accompanies the project as an intermediary to the writer and her literary work as well as to her musical preferences, giving an introduction also at the day of the premieres. Once more „Text im Klang“ offers a dramaturgically coherent program on October 16th, and concludes the following day with an open brunch, allowing reflections on the overall process of the project and an exchange with the audience on their impressions.