More intellectual twaddle from the German avant-garde, though with a mild (very mild) sense of humor. Helmut Lachenmann uses all the extended techniques–best used as effects–to create the substance of his music: bowings on odd parts of instruments, unpitched overblowing of flutes, gongs dipped into water, plucking piano strings, etc. According to the liner notes these are “. . . the rims of the musical instruments where in the classical teaching of music there are only errors, lapses, gaffes, or embarrassments. In these abysses filled by the anxieties of musicians Lachenmann discovers purity, beauty, and a new poetry.” This from the same annotator who claims “. . . I am no musician nor music theoretician.” His self-proclaimed ignorance is evident–these “rims” have become standard practice in the so-called “classical teaching”. Now canonized, they have lost their novelty and shock-value. The pieces on this disc, which depend on these sounds to carry their musical argument, are just not that interesting, even if this sort of music is something that appeals to you.
There certainly are clever moments: Kontrakadenz threatens to get jazzy, and Klangschatten–mein Saitspiel is both bold in its use of huge forces to create very little sound and stately in its slow, menacing development. The hidden march-like quality of Fassade is wry and amusing and pokes fun at classical tradition while simultaneously attempting to find a way around it. But in his attempt to break completely with tradition, Lachenmann ignores all things that make music compelling. For example, one technique that he uses is to substitute cadences with silence; rather than functioning to create a sense of motion or expectation, these injudicious pauses kill the momentum.
Unlike some of his contemporaries, Lachenmann is truly attempting to create music that is engaging as well as intellectual. But in the end, it doesn’t work. This recording features valiant and aggressive playing by the SWR Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart, NDR Sinfonieorchester, and SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg, all under Michael Gielen, and is clearly recorded so that every thrown bow and scraped string is precise and audible. But the performances verge on clangy and metallic, so the already unmusical material suffers.
