It might seem audacious to venture to place any piece of music alongside the gigantic symphonic creations of Gustav Mahler. And yet this is the essence of the commission from the Jena Philharmonic and its Music Director Simon Gaudenz for the composer Andrea Scartazzini. A short, self-contained orchestral work has been composed to complement each of the Mahler symphonies, each relating to Mahler’s music and intellectual world.

The first two compositions, Torso and Epitaph, have already been premiered, and now the first performance of the third piece, Spiriti, is on the programme in Neubrandenburg and Jena. His work does not include any brass instruments, and the woodwind are used just for shadow-like noises, as a counterpart to the sheer orchestral force which breaks new ground in Mahler’s 3rd Symphony. In Scartazzini’s piece, calm, deep string passages with gongs, some enriched with new percussion instruments dominate tonally, as well as ethereal, fine, almost dance-like passages which finally lead seamlessly into Mahler’s first movement.

“Spiriti” is the Italian word for spirits. Scartazzini’s ghostly Scherzo thus refers to Mahler’s musical cosmology which he realizes in the 3rd Symphony. To Mahler’s six movements – on inanimate nature, flowers, creatures, mankind, angels and heavenly love – Scartazzini adds a new movement, Spiriti, which expands the dances of creation with a nod towards the kingdom of the spirits of nature.

Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini
(from [t]akte 2/2019 - tranlastion: Elizabeth Robinson)