SCHUBERT SCHÖNBERG TRALALA, ein Abend mit Marino Formenti

The Italian pianist Marino Formenti, who lives in Vienna, is particularly known for projects that radically question the concert format and its underlying premises, as well as the relationships it presupposes and creates.

Formenti has performed all-day concerts for a single person, for example, or lived and played for weeks, quietly and in isolation, in the same performance space. Most recently, together with co-founder Hans-Jürgen Hauptmann, he invited artists and audiences to a four-day-and-night “collective durational” event at Zukunftshof Vienna in August 2026, entitled WE ARE FOUNDING A CITY.

The two films screened today, SCHUBERT UND ICH (2014) and SCHÖNBERG PFEIFEN (2025), present two different approaches to making music with people who are not professional musicians. Less conventional documentaries than cinematic records of an exploration into a direct, vibrant, non-product-oriented experience of music, both films pursue this search through “working with amateurs.”

In SCHUBERT UND ICH (2014), Marino works with five Viennese people selected in advance, exploring the songs of Franz Schubert together. For a year, he follows his protagonists with a camera as they encounter Schubert’s music for the first time on a personal level. Their encounters with Schubert’s music give rise to surprising, diverse, and often deeply moving moments. Rehearsals intertwine with conversations about life and music; the interpretations emerge collectively and on equal footing, sometimes even through disagreement. The film, made together with Swiss director Bruno Moll, was nominated for the Austrian Film Award in 2014.

Ten years later, in the Schönberg anniversary year of 2024, marking the 150th birthday of Arnold Schönberg, Marino once again takes to the streets, this time with a camera, a piano, and plenty of schnapps. Together with filmmaker Thomas Marschall, he meets people in various locations throughout Vienna’s urban space. The rule of the game: to test Schönberg’s famous wish that “one day people will whistle his melodies in the streets.” The result is SCHÖNBERG PFEIFEN (2025), a “performance about communication and musicality” and, at times, a rather funny, yet “moving and entertaining” film (Der Standard). Schönberg repeatedly becomes an excuse to reflect on communication, musicality, and the place of music in society.

In between: a live concert with Marino Formenti on piano, featuring Schubert and Schönberg, alongside the highly sensitive songs and cover versions of David Hebenstreit, aka Sir Tralala: dark, ironic, fragile, vulnerable—in other words, if you will, a genuine breath of Viennese air.

19:00 Film: SCHUBERT UND ICH

21:00 Concert: Marino Formenti and Sir Tralala

22:30 Film: SCHÖNBERG PFEIFEN

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