Helmut Lachenmann, a key figure in contemporary musical thinking, has been awarded the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the 52nd Biennale di Venezia.

The proposal came from the Festival Director, Luca Francesconi, and was approved by the Board of Directors of the Venice Biennale, chaired by Paolo Baratta. The awards ceremony will take place on Friday 3 October at the Teatro alle Tese in the Arsenale di Venezia. “Much loved and controversial, the music of Helmut Lachenmann”, reads the motivation, “has had and has a great influence on the composers of at least two generations. The highly radical and utopian conception of the times of a dissected sound, stripped of a semantic weight to achieve a state that can be defined “mineral”, has emblematically marked the extreme consequences of the structuralist musical avant-garde. But at the same time, and perhaps this is the most interesting and also surprising aspect, he has opened a new world of sound, provocatively forcing the limits of perception. Born of a negative conception of the semantic horizon, he has finally revealed a new idea of language and, so to speak, a new form of “virginity” of sound”.

The ties between Helmut Lachenmann and Venice and its culture are historic and deep: aged little more than 20, he settled on the Giudecca to study with Luigi Nono, and soon became one of his closest friends. It was at the Biennale di Venezia in the 25th International Festival of Contemporary Music (1962) that he enjoyed his debut as a composer, with Fünf Strophen. His music is today performed throughout the world, and also recorded, analysed and discussed. He returned to the Venice Biennale in 1993 with Mouvement (– vor der Erstarrung), performed by the Ensemble Modern and again in 2006 with Concertini, performed by the Klangforum Wien.

This year, Lachenmann will be present at the 52nd International Festival of Contemporary Music with two of his most important works: Schreiben (2003) for a large orchestra (Orchestra Nazionale Sinfonica della RAI, conducted by Arturo Tamayo) and Grido (2001) for string quartet (Arditti Quartet).