Christian Muthspiel: Vom Jandln Zum Ernst

Description

"The spoken poem only works when read aloud," Ernst Jandl (1925-2000) once said, and he was without a doubt the finest performer of his own works. Be it sound poems, or poems in "run-down language," or the four-line "stanzas" - it took Jandl's interpretational skill to make them come truly alive. And lest this striking, instantly recognizable voice and Jandl's poetry sink into oblivion, Christian Muthspiel went ahead and wrote "vom Jandln zum Ernst," a piece tailor-made for the unorthodox instrumentation of his jazz orchestra ORJAZZTRA VIENNA, creating the illusion of a joint live performance with Jandl himself by introducing the poet's voice, extracted from various recordings, as the main soloist. Muthspiel had played live on stage with Ernst Jandl back in the 1980s, and after the poet's death performed the solo piece "fur und mit ernst," in which he duetted with Jandl's voice, more than one hundred times. On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Jandl's birth, Muthspiel has distilled decades of enthusiasm for Jandl's oeuvre (who was himself a keen lover of jazz) into a ninety-minute oratorio for a poet's voice and seventeen jazz soloists.