The Lachenmann Lacuna

[Mandryka]

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/9600044--helmut-lachenmann-my-melodies

It's the voice of a confident composer, very able to use the orchestra to produce attractive music. I bet it's fabulous in the concert hall - fat chance of that happening in London!


Interesting looking essay on melody in recent music, and obviously in Lachenmann in particular.

Well it did come to London, and I'm revisiting it tonight - this is one of Lachenmann's major masterpieces, no doubt about it, and one of the most interesting recent things I've heard from a German composer.

Booklet here

https://static.qobuz.com/goodies/04/000206640.pdf

Pression was Lachenmann's cello, though it sounds nothing like a cello; Guero was Lachenmann's piano, though it sounds nothing like a piano; My Melodies is Lachenmann's melodies, though they sound nothing like melodies. In all three cases he's confronting objects and concepts which are loaded with conventional expectations, stripping those expectations away and making something new and his own. All his msuic is a gesture of defiance, of self assertion.  His piano, his cello, his melody. He's the ultimate existentialist composer. 

[not edward]

Anyone else heard Mes Adieux, the new-ish (2022) string trio getting its first commercial recording on this disc?

[Mandryka]

Anyone else heard Mes Adieux, the new-ish (2022) string trio getting its first commercial recording on this disc?

I have it. I've only heard the string trio. It was that trio which set me thinking about how Lachenmann sits in the context of other German music, especially Neue Einfachheit.