Mumelters Concertodrom

Martin Mumelter invented and founded the Concertodrom with his concept and adapted the line-up to the idea; after that there was no leadership: “I would rather not speak of ‘leadership’, there was none; from then on we thought everything through and did everything together” (translated from the German). Harry Pepl was not part of it at first; Werner Pirchner, the Austrian composer and vibraphonist, suggested his friend and jazz partner, and it worked very well together straight away.¹

Pepl described membership as liberating because he only had to improvise, and only where he wanted to. The premiere was followed by a tour of the British Isles, including the Edinburgh Festival and the Albert Hall.² Martin Mumelter remembers concerts in England, probably in London, and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland; the main thing was many concerts in Austria.¹

Martin Mumelter describes the Concertodrom as an ensemble that played from 1970 to 1975, commissioned by Jeunesses musicales, mainly for young audiences: specialists in early and new music such as Kurt Neuhauser (organ and piano, since the ensemble by no means played only in venues with an organ), the cellist Max Engel and the soprano Doris Linser, and from jazz Harry Pepl and Werner Pirchner. The audience could hand in themes, texts and twelve-tone rows for the ensemble to improvise on. It set the submitted texts to music in improvisation; Doris Linser carried this to a large extent, without her, according to Mumelter, it would not have been possible, and it was often “delightfully funny” (translated from the German).¹ After the concerts Mumelter often heard: “The improvisations sounded like compositions, the compositions like improvisations.”³