Alon Sariel on Vienna Mandolin Stories

Striking out after his two acclaimed Bach albums, Israeli mandolinist Alon Sariel explores some of his instrument's less-trodden repertoire paths in Vienna Mandolin Stories - featuring Mozart transcriptions, an inventive Haydn-derived hybrid work that might have been dreamed up by the musical minds of the city in the composer's time (but is actually of Sariel's own devising), and premiere performances of newly-rediscovered works by Ernest Krähmer. 

I spoke to Alon about how this album took shape, about the mandolin's place in classical music more generally, and about his future plans.

What first drew you to Vienna specifically as the focus for this album?

Well, first of all, the fact it’s been home to so many of my musical idols – a city with a legacy that shaped classical music. But beyond its historical weight, what really struck me during recent visits was the sense that something fresh and exciting is happening there now. It’s that rare mix of timeless cultural glamour and a vibrant, evolving scene that makes Vienna feel both rooted and forward-looking. That combination was impossible to ignore. I ended up moving there, and I also wanted to explore the history of my main instrument – the mandolin – within this culture, which is pretty vast.

The thing that sticks out to the ear is of course that the mandolin really doesn’t have much of a way to produce a sustained sound for long melodies, in the way that the violin or flute do. Do you see much evidence of composers scoring accompaniments differently to allow for this - or do they rely on the brightness of the tone to cut through the texture and be heard?

You're right – physically, the mandolin can't sustain sound like a violin or flute. But I’ve never seen that as a limitation, and I’ve never tried to make the mandolin into something it’s not. It’s like meeting someone on the street – you don’t question why their voice sounds a certain way; you just respond to them as they are. The mandolin has its own voice, and it hasn't changed since I first picked it up at eight years old. Good composers understand this. They write for an instrument, not against it—just as Mozart wouldn’t write the same accompaniment for a bass as for a coloratura soprano, he clearly tailored his writing to suit the mandolin’s unique character.

You mention two tuning methods – Neapolitan and Viennese. For those of us who aren’t well-versed in the mandolin, how do these differ? Do they allow (maybe even require) different kinds of playing?

Great question – this is still a bit of an obscure topic, even among mandolin players. The mandolin doesn’t have a single point of origin, and different traditions developed in parallel. The Viennese (or North Italian) mandolin, also used in Austria, typically has six courses and is tuned in a mix of fourths and thirds, much like the lute. It was strung with gut (or today, synthetic gut) and often thought of as a kind of soprano lute.

The Neapolitan mandolin, on the other hand, has four courses tuned in fifths – just like the violin – and is always played with a plectrum. So while one evolved more from the lute tradition, the other has closer ties to the violin family. Each tuning system calls for a different technique, sound world, and compositional approach, which is part of what makes the mandolin family so fascinating.

Similarities in tuning make it relatively easy for mandolinists to play works originally written for the violin. Is this something you lean into, or do you try to avoid it?

It really depends. Over time, I’ve learned which violin works can translate naturally to the mandolin – and even take on a new life – and which styles don’t quite fit. Of course, this is very subjective! On this album, the only violin piece is the slow movement from Haydn’s concerto, and I’d be genuinely curious to hear how listeners respond to it – especially violinists, but not only them. Sometimes it’s in those unexpected translations that new layers of meaning appear. 

One of the main ‘stars’ of the album is Ernest Krähmer, whose works have only just come to light and which you record here for the first time. What do we know about him and his career?

Ernest Krähmer was an oboist at Vienna’s Burg-Theater and moved in the top musical circles of his time. He corresponded with Beethoven and was even a witness at the wedding of Xaver Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus’s son. It’s likely he played in the premieres of works that are now part of the classical canon. His connection to the mandolin may have come through Pietro Vimercati, a celebrated Italian virtuoso who made a strong impression in Vienna during those years.

What’s the story behind what you dub ‘Haydn’s Mandolin Concerto’, with two movements adapted from Haydn and a third by Ignaz Malzat that’s often been attributed to him?

The mandolin was hugely popular in the Baroque period and had another surge around the turn of the 20th century. But during the so-called Wiener Klassik – Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and often Schubert – the instrument appears only occasionally, mostly in stage works, chamber, or vocal music. I wanted to fill that gap with a substantial concerto by a major composer – almost like restoring a missing piece of the puzzle.

I listened to many of Haydn’s concertos and eventually created a mandolin concerto in C major by recomposing movements from three of his concertos: for cello, violin, and oboe. Interestingly, the oboe concerto turned out not to be by Haydn at all, but by Ignaz Malzat. It was important to me to acknowledge that and correct the long-standing misattribution. Still, the character of Malzat’s rondo fits so naturally into the structure that I chose to keep it – Haydn or not.

You allude to another project in the pipeline, involving Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. Can you tell us anything more about this, or is it still under wraps?

It’s no secret that I plan to continue my Plucked Bach series with Pentatone. I’ve never stopped arranging and reimagining Bach’s music for my various plucked instruments. Right now, that work mostly unfolds in my Bach recitals, which I’m lucky to perform around the world. But yes – there’s definitely more Bach on the horizon. There always will be.