“All Wars Are One War“ is a musical performance for piano, cello, kettledrum, and voice. In it, selected recitative texts encounter their pop culture transformations: Aldous Huxley’s writings on war and the role of the soldier meet “Army Dreamers”, Kate Bush’s song about a soldier killed in action during the First World War. Siouxsie and the Banshees’ “Icon” interacts with Mircea Eliade’s reflections on the differences between archaic and contemporary societies in relation to their image of history. Morrissey is the answer to E. M. Forster, Joy Division to Virginia Woolf. In the texts and songs, armed conflict is not the only form of war being addressed. They are also concerned with a wider definition that includes social, religious and individual spheres. According to Hector Berlioz the piano is a hybrid instrument incorporating percussion and strings. The orchestration of this performance by Alessio delli Castelli takes this into account, separating the two areas using the cello and the kettledrum in order to synthesise them both conceptually and musically.
Piano and voice: Alessio delli Castelli, Cello: Michael Dallinger, Pauke: Gunnar Fras
Alessio delli Castelli (*1979) is an artist. He lives and works in Berlin.