Espcial Helmut Lachenmann #2

Heather O Donnell, pianista, dice que: One characteristic of his music is a continuous occupation with what Wolfgang Rihm calls a "grinding away of the familiar".He transcends any mannerist "newness" that several other composers of avant-guard music fell prey to- as Lachenmann calls it, "a coquettish pseudo-radicalism" intended merely to shock, tickle, or scandalize concert audiences.

Metáfora de los sonidos empleados por Lachenmann. Such use of normally discarded sonic material can be compared to someone wandering through a scrap yard to salvage objects that, with closer observation, radiate beauty, a kind of beauty, though, that may not be in keeping with conventional notions.

Lachenmann takes these forgotten or neglected sounds and arranges them in such a way as to shine a new perspective on them, liberating them from their previous status as unwanted sonic residue. This process should not only be understood as a metaphorical act of salvation. Lachenmann's music also emanates a sensous and aesthetic enjoyment of and fascination with sound in-and-of itself, as well as playful and burlesquely humorous sides.

Serynade

Lachenmann's Serynade, with its 30-minute length, is to date his most extensive work for solo piano written for his wife, the pianist Yukiko Sugawara. The "Y" in the title is a reference to her first name. It is a piece that challenges one very basic tenant in piano physics - that a tone produced from a piano cannot be altered or manipulated after the attack, as it always immediately enters into a process of decay. Lachenmann uses the extensive resonance capabilities of the piano to affect the tones after they have been struck, making a large part of the music "inbetween the tones", so to speak. He does this by using silently depressed keys that open the strings for responsive resonance, or by unconventional usage of the pedals. One can imagine two planes of perception in this piece: on the one hand, the stark reality of the forceful block chords, the pounded clusters and angular figurations - pronounced acts of instrumental sound production; and on the other, the "ghost resonances" emerging from these attacks, producing an alternate world of lingering memory, hidden references, fragile lightness, and ethereal beauty.

Lachenmann: “A composer is not a missionary. A composer is not a prophet. A composer is not John the Baptist, who made critiques to the people saying, ‘You are all sinners.’ This political aspect is an illusion. If I thought music was a higher message, then I think I must give some sort of political message, of freedom, of liberty. My teacher was Luigi Nono, a communist. He always had the hope of touching people and changing their consciousness. I think art does such things, but the composer who wants to manipulate the spirit or conscience of another will always fail. It is not possible....”.

Tanzsuite mit Deutschlandlied (1979-80), as its title implies, alludes to the German national anthem, attributed to Franz Joseph Haydn

Most recently, he received the Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award for Chamber-Scale Composition (2004, for III. Streichquartett, 'Grido').

Intérieur I has been described by the composer as a breakthrough piece, perhaps his unofficial Opus One. Scored for a solo percussionist performing in a horseshoe-shaped setup, the piece is a direct result of Lachenmann’s fruitful contact with Caskel and Ranta in Cologne a few years earlier. Its emphasis on primarily unpitched instruments, including various cymbals, gongs and metallic objects, marked the earliest phase of Lachenmann’s experiments in bringing the production of sound, even its supposedly ugly attributes, to the surface. It is not a mature work, but still noteworthy.

Música electrónica

He said that he had rejected electronic music 35 years ago: “A loudspeaker is a totally sterile instrument. Even the most exciting sounds are no longer exciting when projected through a loudspeaker. There is no danger in it anymore.... With electronics, there is not ambivalence. There is no history there....

Bach

“Each fugue or invention of Johann Sebastian Bach was not done to make the world better, but it did make the world better...because it was one of the documents of totally concentrated, totally free human spirit. Not more, not less.”

Intro a Pression

La lectura de sus nueve páginas, resulta clarificadora en extremo del proceso de producción de cada sonido, que comprende técnicas variadísimas, resultado de la aplicación de la energía en diversos grados sobre las cuerdas, la caja del instrumento, el puente, el cordal, el mástil, el propio arco, etc. La palma de la mano, las yemas de los dedos, las uñas, etc., se activan en unas acciones precisamente indicadas en las dos secciones en las que Lachenmann divide cada línea de la partitura, ampliamente anotada con textos que explican cada acción, así como con dibujos y algunas secciones de escritura “convencional”.

El propio Lachenmann, en el prefacio de la edición escrita, indica que ésta debe ser tocada, a ser posible, “de corazón”.

La medición de la duración de los silencios es compleja, como suele suceder en esta obra, de exigentes acciones instrumentales, que marca hasta duraciones concretas para determinados pasajes, como se observa en la tercera línea de la cuarta página de la partitura, en el momento en que se atacan sucesivamente las cuatro cuerdas bajo el puente en fff lunga possibile con una presión al límite del arco durante “60 segundos. Las dinámicas son también complejas en su manejo y, como sugiere Lachenmann, se amplifica el violonchelo al máximo.

1. Serynade,1997-98, revised 2000 *. Lachenmann Piano Music. Marino Formenti
2. Tanzsuite mit Deutschlandlied, amplified string quartet, large orchestra (74 players), 1979-80 * Berlin German Symphony Orchestra. Dirigida por Olaf Henzold; Arditti.
3. Intérieur I, percusión, 1965-66 Johannes Beer,
4. Notturno (Musik für Julia), cello, small orchestra (2 flutes [any one + piccolo], trumpet, harp, timpani, 3 percussion, 19 strings), 1966-68, revised 1990 Performed by Wien Klangforum with Andreas Lindenbaum. Conducted by Hans Zende.
5. Pression, cello, 1969-70. Michael Bach