What to expect from a 'musicabanda' from East Tyrol? Gemütliche folk music? Yodelling? Dance music for weddings and parties? An evening in a beer pub? Either way: definitely not Mahler. But why not, thought the Franui from the village of Innervillgraten. Result: an enervating performance around orchestral songs. We have never heard Mahler like this before.
Whereas Mahler used a huge palette for his orchestrations, the songs are now dominated by brass, with breathtaking sound effects from harp and chopping board and a fine supporting role for accordion. Even close-harmony is not avoided by the ensemble, making 'Ich ging met Lust durch einen grünen Wald' recall vocal groups from the 1930s.
A gimmick?
No, absolutely not. The arrangements are extraordinarily ingenious, the musicians highly virtuosic and the recited excerpts from Robert Walser's Kleine Dichtungen create a dreamy atmosphere.
In dry-comic fashion, trumpeter and musical director Andreas Schett explains at the beginning of the evening how to drive from Amsterdam to Innervillgraten and that on the other side of the mountain meadow after which the 'banda' is named stands the hut in which Mahler completed his ninth symphony and sketches for the tenth.
More than this geographical link, Franui exposes the influence of folk music on Mahler's work. The composer drew most of his song lyrics from Das Knaben Wunderhorn, an extensive collection of folk songs from the early nineteenth century. And the influence of German and Austrian folk music is also frequent in his music.
Approaching Mahler's songs in turn from that musical tradition, they create a fascinating mishmash of folk music, classical, jazz and even klezmer that manages to move more than once. When Franui plays one of their famous funeral marches as an encore, the ensemble has already stolen the hearts of the audience. The most enjoyable Mahler evening in years.
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