Musikverein Perspektiven: Elfriede Jelinek

In the beginning: a grand piano

A out-of-tune grand piano is the beginning of everything. Out of tune due to the passage of time, or more precisely: due to 30 years without a tuner and without being played. The grand piano stands in Elfriede Jelinek’s home; it is a symbol of her preoccupation with music, a lifelong passion for her, a trained organist. She herself has not played the grand piano for over three decades—but it is there, a long-silent, out-of-tune witness to time. Now, however, it has been awakened, played—and left as it is. It sounds as it sounds: multi-layered, dazzling, complex, strange, beautiful, aged, timeless and young at the same time, irritating and touching. When you strike a single key, an entire chord sounds, created by time and detuning. The slackening of the strings, the decay, but also the emergence of something new, a new soundscape.

Elfriede Jelinek is friends with pianist Marianne Schroeder. For decades, Schroeder has focused primarily on contemporary music, including John Cage and many others, as well as Giacinto Scelsi—another composer of iridescent soundscapes, not due to the times, but rather to compositional use of microtonal tuning. Marianne Schroeder played the grand piano at Elfriede Jelinek’s home – and both Elfriede Jelinek and Marianne Schroeder were electrified by the sound of this special instrument. Their fascination with this instrument led to a collaboration between the two: Elfriede Jelinek gave Marianne Schroeder her text “AnTasten Schatten. Eurydike spielt” (Touching Shadows. Eurydice Plays) – and Marianne Schroeder will use this text to develop a world premiere for the “Musikverein Perspektiven” (Music Society Perspectives) around Elfriede Jelinek. With recorded sounds from Elfriede Jelinek’s highly personal grand piano, live piano improvisation on a modern grand piano, and recordings of the text, spoken by Elfriede Jelinek herself, among others.

This project marked the beginning of discussions about “Musikverein Perspectives: Elfriede Jelinek.” Dramaturg Claus Philipp told Stephan Pauly, director of the Musikverein, and Bernhard Günther, artistic director of Wien Modern, about it. And the joint idea arose to curate an entire program for a festival, with concerts and projects that show the writer from the perspective of her passion for music. The initial spark provided by the grand piano led to several meetings with Elfriede Jelinek, during which they talked about music, texts, plays, practicing, playing, and writing, about musicians, actors, composers—and about the grand piano. Bernhard Günther, Stephan Pauly, and Claus Philipp then curated a program that revolves entirely around music and Elfriede Jelinek. Concerts, text-music performances, song, organ, ensemble music, a musical installation, films, and discussions. With Jelinek’s musical fixtures, with music set to texts by Elfriede Jelinek, with a series of musical and cinematic works by Olga Neuwirth spanning decades that deal with Jelinek, and last but not least with current texts by Elfriede Jelinek, which will be read publicly for the first time on several evenings.

Portrait von Elfriede Jelinek an einer Orgel sitzen im Jahr 1991

[...] a long-silent, out-of-tune witness to history. But now it has been awakened, played—and left just as it is.

Elfriede Jelinek’s musical fixed stars

Music has accompanied Elfriede Jelinek throughout her life. She studied organ in Vienna and has dealt with music from a wide variety of perspectives in her literary work—for example, in novels, individual texts about composers, plays, and opera libretti. Mozart and Wagner play an important role—and above all, Schubert and Mahler, who are musical fixed stars for Jelinek. That is why Schubert’s “Winterreise” and Mahler’s “Kindertotenlieder” are on the program. These are great, timeless song cycles that bear witness to their time, telling of censorship and hardship, of the dark side of human existence, and with which Jelinek has dealt intensively. They will be interpreted by baritone Samuel Hasselhorn and Lukas Sternath on the piano. A central text by Jelinek about Schubert will enter into dialogue with the music. And music by Olivier Messiaen is also a must if one wants to shed light on Elfriede Jelinek’s musical biography: she herself often played Messiaen, including in her organ exam during her studies – she also reflected on this experience in a text about her organ teacher and Messiaen’s “Les Yeux dans les roues,” which will be performed at the Musikverein Perspektiven.

Current texts by Jelinek – language and music

This text for her organ teacher, in which she sums up what music is in a manner as casual as it is wonderful, is one of many in which Elfriede Jelinek has repeatedly addressed music over the decades of her writing career. Writing accompanies her day after day – she constantly writes new texts, which she publishes on her website, on music, society, politics, and current topics. Incidentally, she also writes about the out-of-tune, silenced, resurrected, and newly resounding grand piano. Some of these current texts will be read publicly for the first time in November in the “Musikverein Perspektiven” (Musikverein Perspectives), on three musical evenings, in an encounter between language and music, interpreted by renowned actors and musicians who are developing these evenings together with the Musikverein and Wien Modern.

Music with lyrics by Jelinek

Not only does Elfriede Jelinek have a great passion for music—her lyrics also have an enormous musical quality, which has often been described and made audible in countless theater productions. Many composers have seen and heard this in Jelinek’s texts and have composed works that engage with her texts as librettos, recitations, subtexts, and inspiration. A concert with the Black Page Orchestra focuses on this music, including world premieres.

Works by Olga Neuwirth – with and about Jelinek

The composer who has probably engaged most with Elfriede Jelinek’s work and developed and created many works together with her is Olga Neuwirth. As one of the outstanding composers of the present day, her extensive oeuvre includes a whole group of pieces that were created with Elfriede Jelinek or based on her texts. The two have also created films together – as well as several musical theater works and operas. Neuwirth’s works for ensemble will be performed at the “Musikverein Perspektiven,” the films will be shown at the Film Museum, and there will be a new music installation by Olga Neuwirth inspired by her current opera Monster’s Paradise, which she composed to a libretto by Elfriede Jelinek and which premiered at the Hamburg State Opera in February 2026. At the center of this installation by Olga Neuwirth is a text by Jelinek about Neuwirth—and a grand piano. A self-playing grand piano in dialogue with recordings of Elfriede Jelinek’s detuned grand piano. In a sense, this closes an artistic circle across the passage of time: Olga Neuwirth explored the musical possibilities of the out-of-tune grand piano very early on, more than 25 years ago, in the music theater piece “Bählamms Fest” (1999). Now she is using this tonal possibility again, in a different, contemporary way.

Further events will be announced shortly.

Musikverein Perspektiven: Elfriede Jelinek

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