Helmut Lachenmann @ 90

On the occasion of the 90th birthday of Helmut Lachenmann, one of the most influential and deeply visionary composers of the last 100 years, the Goethe-Institut Boston hosts a mini-symposium with composition students and professors from New England. Six informal presentations by a variety of mainly Boston-area composers, historians and musicians give insight into his work and are the basis for a discussion on Lachenmann's unique sound world and his continuing influence on composers today. The goal of the following discussion is to formulate a list of questions for the composer in an upcoming internal zoom conversation for composition and other interested students.
The mini-symposium is free and open to the interested public. Please rsvp.
SCHEDULE
Rick Burkhardt: Resonance - Helmut Lachenmann's Allegro Sostenuto
10:00–10:30 AM
Helmut Lachenmann’s Allegro Sostenuto takes as its material the dynamic envelope of notes played on the piano, and explores artificially altering that envelope by combining it with the varied, controllable dynamic envelopes of the clarinet of cello. This presentation investigates how such alterations inform the formal structures of the piece, analyzing the piece’s first section in detail, and proposing a way of hearing the form of the entire piece in relation to discoveries from that analysis.
Richard Carrick: Performing Salut für Caudwell
10:30–11:00 AM
Stephen Drury: Serynade: Melodies, resonances, silences
11:00-11:30 AM
An investigation of Lachenmann's major work for piano solo, its techniques and sonic implications. Block chords, figurations, repeated articulations, and sympathetic resonances combine to create an emotionally evocative and visionary spiritual journey. The resources of the piano are expanded by careful compositional attention, provoking an intimate and compelling degree of listening guided by a clear and exquisite formal structure.
BREAK
11:30–11:45 AM
Rebecca Marchand: Darstellung v. Notieren: Considering Dimensionality in Graphic Notation
11:45 AM – 12:15 PM
In a 1970 interview with Ursula Stürzbecher, Helmut Lachenman used the phrase "graphische Darstellung" (versus "Notieren") to describe notations in Pression and Guero. This work-in-progress probes the possible significance of that phrase, suggesting that it might be more than just an issue of semantics and could ultimately provide a keener and more specific analytical taxonomy for discussing graphic notation.
Nima Janmohammadi: That rare joy of listening...
12:15–12:45 PM
In this presentation, I examine the generative properties of musical objects in Lachenmann’s Zwei Gefühle (1992), tracing how a basic musical idea evolves into large-scale form. I will show how these generative properties permeate every dimension of the musical material—harmony, timbre, temporal treatment, and the morphology of gestures. In particular, I will highlight how musical objects themselves act as formative agents, shaping dynamics, acoustical oppositions, temporal proportions, and ultimately the overall architecture of the work.
Efstratios Minakakis: Architectonics of Sonic Design: Towards a Gestural Syntax in Lachenmann’s “Grido”
12:45–1:15 PM
This presentation proposes a method of conceptualizing aspects of gestural syntax in Lachenmann’s work and applies it to an extended passage of his third string quartet, Grido. The method complements Lachenmann’s idea of sound-types (1966/91) with analytical tools adapted from Dora A. Hanninen’s “Theory of Analysis.” Using the latter, I organize individual sound morphemes into associative sets and examine how they interact with each other and evolve into a network of associative landscapes. I further address how the mechanics of their interaction and evolution create syntactical implications that inform the larger sonic design.
LUNCH BREAK
1:15–3:15 PM
DISCUSSION & QUESTIONS FOR HELMUT LACHENMANN
3:15–5:30 PM

Host or Publisher Goethe-Institut Boston