Sergio Armaroli

Featuring: Alessandro Camnasio

The Mahler (in/a) Cage field recording work involves the recording, in situ, from the Casetta di composizione (Composition house) in Dobbiaco/Toblach (Bozen), of the soundscape in which Gustav Mahler composed his last works from 1909 to 1911 and in particular The Song of the Earth (Das Lied von der Erde). The recording session took place over two summer days, from July to August 2020 from 5 am onwards, in the period of the year in which Mahler himself resided in Dobbiaco to compose at the beginning of the century.

Mahler (in/a) Cage is a field recording work, a process of possible reconstruction of a hypothetical and natural soundscape, within Mahler’s music or rather his musical imaginary following some archetypal signals (e.g. cowbells, birdsongs). All this is traced back to the composition of John Cage Sculptures Musicales (1989): “Sounds lasting and leaving from different points and forming a sounding sculpture which lasts” (Marcel Duchamp). An exhibition of several (sonic sculptures), one at a time, beginning and ending “hard-edge” with respect to the surrounding “silence”, each sculpture within the same space the audience is. From one sculpture to the next, no repetition, no variation. For each a minimum of three constant sounds each in a single envelope. No limit to their number. Any lengths of lasting. Any lengths of non-formation. Acoustic and/or electronic [Peters Edition EP 67348].