Progetto Razzia

The initial inspiration for this project came to me while I was writing a monograph on Schönberg’s “Verklärte Nacht”, Il labirinto e l’intrico dei viottoli [The Labyrinth and the Tangle of Pathways]. Schönberg, like Mahler, was attuned to the relationship between music and venues for music, and in my research, I discovered that Mahler was particularly concerned with the chamber-music aspect of his own Lieder from the Wunderhorn collection. He had even conducted some of them in what was then known as the Small Hall of Vienna’s Musikverein (now Brahms Hall), a space only suitable for a chamber orchestra—too small for the ensemble required for some of these Lieder. I consequently wondered about the kind of adaptation Mahler had made for that performance, while I was already considering undertaking a similar operation myself.

«Au temps fabuleux de l'Irlande préchrétienne, quand régnaient sur l'Ulster les rois guerriers et les druides, et le grand Conchobar, mort de colère, selon la légende, en apprenant la crucifixion du Christ, une simple dispute entre le roi Aillil et la reine Medb à propos d'un taureau manquant engendra une guerre violente et sans merci qui bouleversa tout le pays du nord au sud. …