world première Baden-Baden, December 3, 1977


The typical aura which attaches to the guitar as folk and art instrument encompasses the primitive as well as the highly sensitive, intimate and collective – it also includes motives which may be exactly described in historic, geographic and sociological terms. I started from the characteristic playing style of the guitar, simplifying it in technical fingering, but also re-forming and developing it, often beyond the limits imposed by practice centring on that aura. I constantly had the feeling that this music was "accompanying" something – if not a text, then individual words or thoughts. This is reflected by the incorporation of spoken words or thoughts, derived from "Illusion and Reality" by the English Marxist poet and author Christopher Caudwell who died in Spain nearly 40 years ago at the age of 30 among those attempting to halt the Franco regime. Caudwell demanded an art which realistically confronts reality and its multi-layered contradictions. To him and to all outsiders who, because they disturb thoughtlessness, are instantly lumped together with iconoclasts, this piece is dedicated.

Helmut Lachenmann (Translation: Niall Hoskin)


Bibliography:

Lück, Hartmut: Philosophie und Literatur im Werk von Helmut Lachenmann, in: Der Atem des Wanderers. Der Komponist Helmut Lachenmann, hrsg. von Hans-Klaus Jungheinrich, Mainz: Schott 2006, S. 41-55
Schneider, Gunter: Die Gitarre in der Neuen Musik. Streifzüge und Momentaufnahmen, in: spuren, Zeitung des Festivals „Klangspuren“ Schwaz, 2. Ausgabe September 2005, S. 4f


CDs/LP:

Christopher Brandt, Robin Hoffmann
CD Cadenza 800 875
Wilhelm Bruck, Theodor Ross
CD col legno 0647 277
Norio Sato, Kei Koh
CD ALM-Records ALCD 53
Christopher Brandt, Robin Hoffmann
CD Foxfire, Cadenza 800875, Vertrieb: Note 1
Wilhelm Bruck, Theodor Ross
LP col legno 5504
Barbara Romen, Gunter Schneider (guit)
CD DURIAN 018-2
Mats Scheidegger und Stephan Schmidt (guit)
CD Musiques Suisses MGB CTS-M 90
Wilhelm Bruck und Theodor Ross (guit)
CD KAIROS 0012652KAI