Helmut Lachenmann's "Sound Types"
Helmut Lachenmann's "Sound Types"
Helmut Lachenmann's "Sound Types"
Source: Perspectives of New Music , Vol. 52, No. 1 (Winter 2014), pp. 217-238
Published by: Perspectives of New Music
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MING TSAO
ORDERED RELATIONS:
Line 1: a → b → c
Line 2: d → e → f
Line 3: g → h → g1
Line 4: i → j
What is the first violin doing? The action in the first violin (g)
produces an energy discharge that extends at least through measure
23. The indication knirschen auf Ruckwand asks the performer to
rotate the bow against the back of the instrument so that the sound of
bow hairs grinding against wood is produced. This action could be
called an action of zero-degree movement where there is neither
horizontal nor vertical motion of the bow, simply a rotation of the
bow and yet, in a sense, one can say that all other actions are formally
derived from it. This action requires a good deal of pressure on the
part of the performer. (Related to this action in measure 23, we have
its augmentation theatrically. Instead of rotating the bow, the entire
violin is rotated right side up so that the bow hairs lightly fall against
the strings as the violin turns, preparing the violinist to play the violin
in the normal fashion.)11 Before the first violinist returns with the
knirschen auf Ruckwand in measure 6 (g1), the second violin drops the
bow onto the strings with the arco balzando creating a new movement
perpendicular to the instrument with very little effort (h). So a third
ordering of relationships is created by actions that require neither
horizontal nor vertical motions of the bow. The movement of energy
in this line is suggested by the following alternation: much effort →
little effort → much effort.
There is also a fourth ordering of relations that emerges in this first
phrase with respect to left-hand actions. This line is defined by the
opposition between a light left-hand pressure, as exemplified through
most of the phrase with harmonics and half-harmonics (i), and a heavy
left-hand pressure, such as the use of the vibrato largissimo in the
second violin (j). The energy of this line is directed through a general
increase in left-hand pressure.
In this first phrase of Gran Torso, there are several ordered relations
defined by actions that require varying degrees of physical effort and
varying directional movements on the instruments. These lines are
placed in counterpoint with one another since they themselves are
related by oppositions such as “light pressure” as opposed to “heavy
pressure” or the “left-hand” as opposed to the “right-hand.” But their
combined energies direct the material forward toward a conclusion (m.
7) in an almost classical phrasing. This is why Lachenmann then
defines musical structure as “polyphony of orderings.”12
As a listener, one can begin to hear traditional categories such as
pitch in new ways. For example, I hear the left-hand pitch with vibrato
less in terms of pitch but rather in terms of the required effort to
produce that pitch, which places it in the same “family,” so to speak, as
the overpressure bowing that immediately follows (m. 7). This allows
crescendos links the first violin with viola and opposing both to the
second violin. Furthermore, in measure 108, the fast tremolo is
emphatically stated in the violins obfuscating the slow tremolo in the
viola in measures 107–08, since the viola only performs a single bow
movement in each measure (i.e., either down or up), thus causing the
viola to momentarily be perceived in the category of non-tremolo.
In measures 109–10, all instruments begin to approach the viola
with long durations that blur the metric boundary, precipitating
further differentiation between the other three instruments: each
instrument begins at a different time point and lasts for a different
duration. Yet the opposition between viola and the other instruments
is maintained by the presence of the tremolo. What existed prior as
long duration with slow tremolo versus short duration with no
tremolo, now transitions, through long duration with no tremolo
versus short duration with fast tremolo, to long duration with no
tremolo versus long duration with fast tremolo.
and 112, occurs between rhythmic unison (i.e., same time-point and
same duration) and rhythmic diversity. The rhythmic unison in
measure 112 provides a link to measure 115 where all instruments but
the viola also perform in rhythmic unison. However, rather than a long
duration with tremolo and crescendo (or diminuendo), the three
instruments perform short durations with no tremolo and no
crescendo (or diminuendo). This presence of discrete impulses gives
rise to yet another opposition. Rather than two discrete sixteenths
separated by a rest (m. 106), there are now two consecutive discrete
sixteenths, yielding the opposition consecutive/non-consecutive
impulses. This last opposition further expands the concept of rhythm
that is slowly constructed in these measures by adding the notion of
sequence to that of duration, iteration, and time-point. What is
perceptually fascinating about the iterative impulses in measure 115 is
the fact that they precipitate the cello reentery by continuously bowing
the tailpiece so that the continuous/discrete opposition can clearly
manifest itself again between the viola and cello. However, unlike the
first instance in measure 104 where the cello is perceived as
background to the slow tremolo in the viola, the viola now appears as
background to the cello because of the cello’s reemergence, thus
inverting the listener’s perspective. (See Example 13.)
From these thirteen measures, Lachenmann carefully assembles
energy through the various parameters of rhythm—a Strukturklang—
to renew our sense of listening so that we come to hear the slow
bowing on the viola tailpiece as a sound once associated more with
“natural phenomena” now heard as expressive tone, albeit an alienated
one, placing the idea of an unmediated “Nature” into doubt.
Lachenmann’s idea of a Strukturklang is thus essential to his
compositional thinking. One the one hand, it represents his loose
adherence to a serial thinking as inherited particularly by Stockhausen,
where a sound texture’s details are governed by ordered relations that
situate it with respect to a larger temporal framework. These
relationships, between the physical energy of sounds—as well as their
accompanying instrumental actions—and their phenomenal qualities
(ranging from discrete, or “perforated,” to continuous sound textures),
unfold in a consequential way that depends upon a specific temporal
unfolding. It is precisely through this unfolding that Lachenmann
develops the idea of a “polyphony of configurations” as the
juxtaposition of “families of sounds” (including “families of families of
sounds”): sounds, or groups of sounds, of varying individuality that act
together as components with reference to a superordinate character
defined by their quantitative temporal deployment.18
NOTES