Der Mündliche Verrat / La trahison orale (1981)
(A musical epic on the devil)

The subject of this composition of language and music is the figure of the devil, his characteristics and mythologies, appearances and powers of transformation, as they can be found in legends, fairy tales, fables and proverbs, in magic formulas and old folk songs. At the same time, the written definition and transmission of this material through retellings often means a betrayal of the original tradition: the authenticity of the oral tradition is continually eroded by variations over the course of time. From the various textual sources, I assemble an interlocking narrative, an epic continuum of fragments, mainly using the anthology Les Évangiles du Diable, selon la croyance populaire, published by Claude Seignolle in Paris in 1964.

In this translation of the French text, the translator Thomas Körner opted for a uniform style: the targeted conveyance of atmosphere and content through poetic language. This was dictated by the disparate origins and diversity of the original sources (the collection ranges from around 1650 to 1920 and includes documents, reports, stories and sayings from various regions of France).

As a result of this decision, names and places were Germanized in order to make the figure of the devil – whose degree of abstraction is as concrete as his universal presence – appear not as a foreign, almost folkloristic phenomenon, but as an authentic product of the various regions.

M.K.
(Translation by Edition Peters)