Fritz Schedlers Spinatkanons von Bo Wiget

Fritz Schedler was a composer who neither lived nor ever composed. Fritz Schedler was invented by Bo Wiget in 2013 for an oratorio about Lawrence Sterne's Tristram Shandy. Since then, he has haunted Bo Wiget's study and occasionally gets him to write a canon on his behalf. This has been going on for some time, and has resulted, among other things, in large series of 64 canons on the theme of spinach. These are comprised of two- to seven-part contrapuntal miniatures: short mnemonic and absurd sayings set to music, all of which have something to do with the green vegetable, about which strange rumours have been growing: about its iron content, that it is very healthy or that it can become poisonous. The etymology of the word is a Proto-Indo-European word derived from "pointy", referring to the plant's pointy seeds.

Spinach is now set to become a singing movement. The 64 canons are published as a songbook. It is presented as 64 loose sheets, which are very practical for singing together, in a slipcase. And so that those who enjoy singing but are not proficient in reading music can also participate, two CDs are included in the slipcase, on which about half of the canons are interpreted by very different people: classical musicians and musicians from the worlds of jazz, rock or experimental art, even people who simply sing a canon at the kitchen table are included.

The hope is for the idiosyncratic love of spinach and the passion for the anachronistic musical form of the canon to become a kind of musical social sculpture. May the publication inspire you to eat together and, above all, to sing together!