Like Mouvement, ... Zwei Gefühle... has been incorporated into the repertoire of leading international chamber ensembles. With ... Zwei Gefühle..., moreover, Lachenmann first gave expression to a central aspect of his opera Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern, which was premiered in 1997: the compositional treatment of the text by Leonardo da Vinci is used there as an insert within the second section.

A large portion of ... Zwei Gefühle ... was written in Luigi Nonos empty house in Sardinia (he died in 1990), and there is no doubt that his memory influenced my conception of the piece at the time.
My work began from the experience of "structural hearing", which is to say the perception and observation of what resonates in an immediate manner, but also the relationships which structure it. These are tied to interior images and feelings which do not in any way distract from this process of observation, but remain indissolubly linked to it and even give it a particular intensity. This is the strange situation which we encounter when we decipher a message concerning us. The immediate job of perception, the (eventually laborious) recognition and assembly of signs on the one hand and, on the other, the power of the message as an intrinsic structure, are strongly intertwined, to the extent of determining one another and forming a complex and unitary experience.
The two narrators of Leonardo da Vincis text in ... Zwei Gefühle ... ("... Two Feelings ...") are the two quasi-complementary conscious parts of an imaginary "Wanderer" and of a reader who marvels in silence. These two function in an unconscious manner akin to the two hands of a blindman working together, which might pass over the text as over a precious inscription, seizing upon its particles, one after the other, and assembling them in his memory as well as can be expected. This assemblage is both concentrated and sober, "damaged" and "struck" (in both senses of the term), since semantically it is an anxious search conducted in ignorance, in which the groping blindman recognises himself.
Whatever resonates is understood as twofold: a material deduced and transformed from the phonetic components and, at the same time, as sparse fragments of a traditional reservoir of affective gestures, arranged in a new way through the sonic relationship of acoustic fields, articulated variously from within, like different volcanoes which come to life or cool off. A Mediterranean sound landscape at an inhospitable altitude - a "pastoral" written while pondering over what links me to the composer of "Hay que caminar".
(Helmut Lachenmann, translated by J. T. Tuttle)
(Program notes for the Huddersfield Festival 2000)

Desire of Knowledge

The raging sea, whipped by the north wind, does not make such a roar with its tumultuous waters between Charybdis and Scylla. Neither do Stromboli nor Mongibello, when the suphurous flames that they enclose force and burst the tall mountain, spewing stones and earth into the air along with the spurting flame that they vomit; neither Mongibello, when its blazing caves release the elements restrained with such difficulty, spitting and vomiting them furiously round about, repulsing everything which might be an obstacle to their impetuous surge ...
Drawn from my vain reverie and desirous of seeing the myriad varied forms created by fecund Nature, I wandered a moment amongst the shadowy rocks and eventually reached a large cave before which I remained a moment, stunned and totally unaware of this marvel. I bent my back, my left hand on my knee and, with my right hand, shaded my squinting eyes, repeatedly leaning from one side to the other, attempting to distinguish something within. But that was made impossible by the darkness which reigned. Soon, two things rose up in me: fear and desire - the fear of the dark and threatening grotto, and the desire to see if there was nothing mysterious there.
(extract from: Leonardo da Vinci - Codici Arundel, translated by J. T. Tuttle)

Non fa sì gran mugghio il tempestoso mare, quando il settentrionale aquilone lo ripercuote colle schiumose onde fra Scilla e Cariddi, né Stromboli o Mongibello quando le solfure fiamme, essendo rinchiuse, per forza rompendo e aprendo il gran monte, fulminando per laria pietra, terra, insieme colluscita e vomitata fiamma, né quando le infocate caverne di Mongibello rivomitando il male tenuto elemento, spigniendolo alla sua regione con furia, cacciando innanzi qualunque ostacolo sinterpone alla sua impetuosa furia.
E tirato dalla mia bramosa voglia, vago di vedere la gran copia delle varie e strane forme fatte dalla artificiosa natura raggiratomi alquanto infra gli ombrosi scogli, pervenni allentrata duna caverna, dinanzi alla quale, restato alquanto stupefatto e ignorante di tal cosa, piegato le mie reni in arco, e ferma la stanca mano sopra il ginocchio e colla destra mi feci tenebre alle abbassate e chiuse ciglia, e spesso piegandomi in qua e in là per vedere dentro, vi discernessi alcuna cosa, e questo vietatomi per la grande oscurità che là entro era. È stato alquanto, subito salza in me due cose: paura e desiderio, paura per la minacciosa oscura spelonca, desiderio di vedere se là entro fosse alcuna miracolosa cosa.
(Leonardo da Vinci, Codex Arundel)


CDs:
Helmut Lachenmann, Klangforum Wien, cond. Hans Zender
CD Accord 204852
Benedikt Leitner, Robert Sedlak, Klangforum Wien, cond. Hans Zender
CD Durian 097/098-2
Klangforum Wien, cond. Hans Zender,
Schola Heidelberg, ensemble aisthesis, cond. Walter Nußbaum
CD KAIROS 0012202KAI
Ensemble Modern, cond. Peter Eötvös
CD ECM 1789
Helmut Lachenmann (speaker), Ensemble Signal, cond. Brad Lubman
CD & DVD mode 252
Helmut Lachenmann (speaker), Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, cond. Peter Eötvös
CD NEOS 11424


Bibliography:

Clarkson, Austin: A Note on zwei Gefühle, Musik mit Leonardo, in: Helmut Lachenmann ­ Music with matches, hrsg. von Dan Albertson, Contemporary Music Review 24 (2005), Vol. 1, pp. 53-55.
Ernst, Michael: Helmut Lachenmann 75 Jahre und Zwei Gefühle. Kein Vulkan, die schiere Musik kommt hier zum Ausbruch, in: Philharmonische Blätter (der Dresdner Philharmonie), Oktober-November-Dezember 2010, pp. 22-25.
Hüppe, Eberhard: Topographie der ästhetischen Neugierde. Versuch über Helmut Lachenmann, in: Nachgedachte Musik. Studien zum Werk von Helmut Lachenmann, hrsg. von Jörn Peter Hiekel und Siegfried Mauser, Saarbrücken: Pfau 2005, pp. 85-104.
Hiekel, Jörn Peter: Escaped from Paradise? Construction of Identity and Elements of Ritual in Vocal Works by Helmut Lachenmann and Giacinto Scelsi, in: Vocal Music and Contemporary Identities. Unlimited Voices in East Asia and the West (= Routledge Research in Music 3), hrsg. von Christian Utz und Frederick Lau, London und New York: Routledge 2013, pp. 158-174.
ders.: Helmut Lachenmann und seine Zeit, Laaber: Laaber 2023, S. 323-337.
Jahn, Hans-Peter: meinetwegen mickrig schäbig nicht bösartig . 12 Annäherungen an die (komponierende) Person Helmut Lachenmann, in: auf (-) und zuhören. 14 essayistische Reflexionen über die Musik und die Person Helmut Lachenmanns, hrsg. von Hans-Peter Jahn, Hofheim: Wolke 2005, pp. 211-238.
Lachenmann, Helmut: ... zwei Gefühle, Musik mit Leonardo. Interview mit Meret Forster, in: Programmheft musica viva-Konzert, München 24. Oktober 2003, pp. 7-11.
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, pp. 41-55.
Meyer, Thomas: Furcht und Verlangen. Helmut Lachenmann, composer-in-residence, in: Musik & Theater 25 (Special-Edition Lucerne Festival 2005), pp. 20-23.
Meyer-Kalkus, Reinhart: Klangmotorik und verkörpertes Hören in der Musik Helmut Lachenmanns, in: Der Atem des Wanderers. Der Komponist Helmut Lachenmann, hrsg. von Hans-Klaus Jungheinrich, Mainz: Schott 2006, pp. 91-110.
Nyffeler, Max: Himmel und Höhle. Transzendenz der Musik Helmut Lachenmanns, in: Der Atem des Wanderers. Der Komponist Helmut Lachenmann, hrsg. von Hans-Klaus Jungheinrich, Mainz: Schott 2006, pp. 79-89.
Stenzl, Jürg: zwei Gefühle und mehr?, in: Der Atem des Wanderers. Der Komponist Helmut Lachenmann, hrsg. von Hans-Klaus Jungheinrich, Mainz: Schott 2006, pp. 165-173.
Wellmer, Albrecht: Helmut Lachenmann: Die Befreiung des Klangs in der konstruktivistischen Tradition der europäischen Moderne, in: ders., Versuch über Musik und Sprache, München: Hanser 2009, pp. 270-299.