Ennui Franui & Peter Simonischek

• 1 Interlude dans un paysage avec une femme bâillante 05:33
• 2 Litanei auf das Fest Allerseelen 05:18
• 3 Einsame Blume 03:21
• 4 Promenade dans une coquille de noix 04:38
• 5 Der Mond ist aufgegangen 01:36
• 6 Berceuse (Mit unzureichendem Lidschluss) 05:14
• 7 Petit requiem pour le troisième homme 06:07
• 8 Teure Mutter 04:19
• 9 Choral ennuyeuse 00:44
• 10 Das Grab 04:10
• 11 Kinderwaldscene 03:57
• 12 Prière 02:11
• 13 Großes Würfelspiel 02:58
• 14 Deburau 00:59
• 15 Ouverture ennuyeuse 05:22
• Total Runtime 56:27

Info for Ennui

This is an album about boredom. It takes the award-winning Musicbanda Franui, accompanied by actor Peter Simonischek, away from their daily routine, back to the days of their childhood, and straight on to the graveyard. By ennui they don’t mean dull, though. Rather, it refers to a state of existential boredom, the moment when you are seized by black emptiness, when you realize the absurdity of life – or in whichever other ways this state has been described by philosophers. One of them, Kierkegaard, claimed that boredom could never be suspended by work but only by amusement.

Amusement, distraction, diversion, entertainment – or, in musical terms: divertimento. Franui have woven a memorable musical tale from brilliant examples of this genre, by Mozart, Satie, Schumann, and others. All there is left to say is: amuse yourselves!

The making of a recording: a popular dance and funeral band from East Tyrol embarks on a journey with Mozart and associates and discovers boredom, without ever getting bored.

Matthias Schulz, then the artistic director of Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum in Salzburg (now the artistic director of Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin), asked us for a contribution to the Mozartwoche 2017. Now, our sound battery made up of bowed and string instruments plus woodwind and brass is sacred to us, of course, and in our humble opinion is capable of producing a virtually inexhaustible range of musical colors. But even so – good grief, Mozart? Some years earlier we had bravely tackled the problem by superimposing the minuet from Don Giovanni with alpine folk songs; after all, in Mozart’s original the banda also performs a dance in the background, while on stage completely different things are happening. (For the result of our efforts, listen to our album “Tanz! (Franz)”.) So, what were we supposed to do this time: disassemble a piano concerto on the hammered dulcimer, or adapt an aria from Figaro or Così for the tuba? [...] (From Markus Kraler, Andreas Schett)

Peter Simonischek, narrator
Franui

Franui
is the name of a mountain pasture close to the small village of Inner- villgraten, located at 1,402 metres above sea level in East Tyrol in Austria, where most of the Franui musicians grew up. The word is of Rhaeto-Romanic origin and refers to the proximity of Innervillgraten to the Ladin-speaking region in the Dolomite Alps.

The Musicbanda of the same name have been playing together in nearly the same lineup since 1993 and are frequently invited to perform at major festivals and venues (e. g. Wiener Konzerthaus, Vienna Burgtheater, Salzburg Festival, Bregenzer Festspiele, Ruhrtriennale, Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin, Münchner Opernfestspiele, Philharmonie Köln, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Schauspielhaus Zurich, Holland Festival, Philharmonie de Paris).

Their adaptations of lieder by Schubert, Schumann, Brahms and Mahler have earned Franui renown beyond the borders of Austria. The ensemble regard themselves as a “transformer station between classical music, folk music, jazz and contemporary chamber music;” sometimes the original is lovingly celebrated in all its beauty, at others it is turned rightside up (or upside down), stripped down to its bare bones, enhanced, painted over, elaborated, in a process that blurs the boundaries between interpretation and improvisation, between arrangement and (re)composition.

For their live shows and music theater productions Franui frequently collaborate with other exceptional performers, including baritone Florian Boesch, writer Hans Magnus Enzensberger, puppeteer Nikolaus Habjan, the mask theater ensemble Familie Flöz, video artist Jonas Dahlberg or actors Dörte Lyssewski, Sven-Eric Bechtolf and Peter Simonischek.

Since 2015 Franui have been in charge of programming the festival “Gemischter Satz” hosted by Konzerthaus Vienna each year in May, which presents new forms of interaction between music, art, literature and wine.

Franui’s albums are released with the label col legno and have won several prizes. In 2018 “Ständchen der Dinge,” the album celebrating the ensemble’s 25th anniversary, won the German Record Critics’ Award.

Booklet for Ennui