Oskar Serti Goes to the Concert.
Why?
A seven-part reflection with a preview
a dramatic concert for a large ensemble and concert hall staff
By Patrick Corillon
For Klangforum Wien
Produced by netZZeit
Commissioned by wien modern and Wiener Konzerthausgesellschaft
A Concert Throughout the House
Oskar Serti Goes to the Concert. Why? is a dramatic concert for a large ensemble, featuring the concert hall staff. Over the course of an evening lasting around six hours, all the concert halls, foyers, corridors and cloakrooms – in short, every area accessible to the public – will serve as performance stages.
The various elements that make up the evening – storytelling, sound installations, exhibitions, conversations, invisible theatre and concerts – will aim to reveal the hidden wonders of the concert hall and shed light on all the longings, desires and dreams that drive us to attend concerts.
Visitors are guided to the venues of the action (concerts, storytelling sessions, etc.) by music, sound effects and lighting. Furthermore, the musicians and the venue’s staff play a part in this. Everyone is integrated into a discreet, almost hidden staging designed to guide our audience. Visitors will move through the venue, seemingly guided by invisible hands. During the opening (8.50 pm – 10.00 pm), spectators will be free to come and go as they please throughout the venue to discover Patrick Corillon’s installations and objects. These installations will be set up only whilst the spectators are in the concert hall.
As a result, the audience will be greeted by a completely different stage design at the end of each concert.
Whilst the structure of the evening and the stories will remain the same regardless of the venue, the programme will be adapted to suit the specific features and technical requirements of each venue.
Oskar Serti Goes to the Concert. Why?
‘Despite the wide variety of subjects covered in his literary work, Oskar Serti never wrote a single line about his love of music.’
And yet, the world of music in general – and his passion for the pianist Catherine de Sélys in particular – had a profound impact on his life.
Through photographs taken by Oskar Serti himself, accounts from his family and friends, his collection of rare instruments and anthologies of folk songs, the musical evening taking place on 5 and 6 November at the Vienna Konzerthaus seeks to answer the question: ‘What secrets drove Oskar Serti to attend concerts so regularly?’
The musical evening ‘Oskar Serti Goes to a Concert. Why?’ simply asks what drives us to go and listen to live music in a venue. Through the character of Oskar Serti, the evening’s iconic audience member, all aspects of this special moment – going to a concert – will be explored. This moment is, of course, the concert itself, but it is also the time spent getting ready to go, the time spent coming back, the joy of seeing friends again, thinking about what we are going to hear; what we heard a week earlier; and remembering it years later. Going to a concert is also about a place. The concert hall itself, but also the corridors, the cloakrooms, the staircases, the bar. In every concert hall, we find the spirit of a place.
Our aim for this special evening is to allow the audience to immerse themselves in the diversity of desires—whether conscious or unconscious—that draw us to the concert.
The evening naturally focuses primarily on contemporary music, but in this particular instance, the various musical pieces (which exist independently outside of this event) will be woven into narratives delivered by the musicians themselves. Whilst the musical segments will be performed in the concert halls themselves, the narrative segments will take place throughout the building: the entrance hall, corridors, cloakrooms, staircases… To tell some thirty stories, all of which depict Oskar Serti’s ardent passion for music, the musicians (sometimes accompanied by actors) will unroll large scrolls of images, display colourful books, animate shadow puppets and bring very unusual instruments to life. They will bring to life all the emotions that run through the life of every music lover.