SKU: BT.EMBZ8377

English-German-Hungarian.

The idea of composing 'Games' was suggested by children playing spontaneously, children for whom the piano still means a toy. They experiment with it, caress it, attack it and run their fingers over it. They pile up seemingly disconnected sounds, and if this happens to arouse their musical instinct they look consciously for some of the harmonies found by chance and keep repeating them. Thus this series does not provide a tutor, nor does it simply stand as a collection of pieces. It is a possibility for experimenting and not for learning to play the piano.Pleasure in playing, the joy of movement - daring and if need be fast movement over the entire keyboard right from the firstlessons instead of clumsy groping for keys and the counting of rhythms - all these rather vague ideas lay at the outset of the creation of this collection. Playing - is just playing. It requires a great deal of freedom and initiative from the performer. On no account should the written image be taken seriously but the written image must be taken extremely seriously as regards the musical process, the quality of sound and silence. We should trust the picture of the printed notes and let is exert its influence upon us. The graphic picture conveys an idea about the arrangement in time of even the most free pieces. We should make use of all that we know and remember of free declamation, folk-music parlando-rubato, of Gregorian chant and of all that improvisational musical practice has ever brought forth.Let us tackle bravely even the most difficult task without being afraid of making mistakes: we should try to create valid proportions, unity and continuity out of the long and short values - just for our own pleasure! (BMC CD 139).

SKU: BT.EMBZ8378

English-German-Hungarian.

The idea of composing 'Games' was suggested by children playing spontaneously, children for whom the piano still means a toy. They experiment with it, caress it, attack it and run their fingers over it. They pile up seemingly disconnected sounds, and if this happens to arouse their musical instinct they look consciously for some of the harmonies found by chance and keep repeating them. Thus this series does not provide a tutor, nor does it simply stand as a collection of pieces. It is a possibility for experimenting and not for learning to play the piano.Pleasure in playing, the joy of movement - daring and if need be fast movement over the entire keyboard right from the firstlessons instead of clumsy groping for keys and the counting of rhythms - all these rather vague ideas lay at the outset of the creation of this collection. Playing - is just playing. It requires a great deal of freedom and initiative from the performer. On no account should the written image be taken seriously but the written image must be taken extremely seriously as regards the musical process, the quality of sound and silence. We should trust the picture of the printed notes and let is exert its influence upon us. The graphic picture conveys an idea about the arrangement in time of even the most free pieces. We should make use of all that we know and remember of free declamation, folk-music parlando-rubato, of Gregorian chant and of all that improvisational musical practice has ever brought forth.Let us tackle bravely even the most difficult task without being afraid of making mistakes: we should try to create valid proportions, unity and continuity out of the long and short values - just for our own pleasure! (BMC CD 139).

SKU: BR.EB-9253

World premiere of the orchestral version: Stuttgart, January 1, 2018World premiere of the piano version: Mito, June 17, 2017

Have a look into EB 9283.

ISBN 9790004185537. 9 x 12 inches.

Marche fatale is an incautiously daring escapade that may annoy the fans of my compositions more than my earlier works, many of which have prevailed only after scandals at their world premieres. My Marche fatale has, though, little stylistically to do with my previous compositional path; it presents itself without restraint, if not as a regression, then still as a recourse to those empty phrases to which modern civilization still clings in its daily utility music, whereas music in the 20th and 21st centuries has long since advanced to new, unfamiliar soundscapes and expressive possibilities. The key term is banality. As creators we despise it, we try to avoid it - though we are not safe from the cheap banal even within new aesthetic achievements.Many composers have incidentally accepted the banal. Mozart wrote Ein musikalischer Spass [A Musical Jape], a deliberately amateurishly miscarried sextet. Beethoven's Bagatellen op. 119 were rejected by the publisher on the grounds that few will believe that this minor work is by the famous Beethoven. Mauricio Kagel wrote, tongue in cheek, so to speak, Marsche, um den Sieg zu verfehlen [Marches for being Unvictorious], Ligeti wrote Hungarian Rock; in his Circus Polka Stravinsky quoted and distorted the famous, all too popular Schubert military march, composed at the time for piano duet. I myself do not know, though, whether I ought to rank my Marche fatale alongside these examples: I accept the humor in daily life, the more so as this daily life for some of us is not otherwise to be borne. In music, I mistrust it, considering myself all the closer to the profounder idea of cheerfulness having little to do with humor. However: Isn't a march with its compelling claim to a collectively martial or festive mood absurd, a priori? Is it even music at all? Can one march and at the same time listen? Eventually, I resolved to take the absurd seriously - perhaps bitterly seriously - as a debunking emblem of our civilization that is standing on the brink. The way - seemingly unstoppable - into the black hole of all debilitating demons: that can become serene. My old request of myself and my music-creating surroundings is to write a non-music, whence the familiar concept of music is repeatedly re-defined anew and differently, so that derailed here - perhaps? - in a treacherous way, the concert hall becomes the place of mind-opening adventures instead of a refuge in illusory security. How could that happen? The rest is - thinking.(Helmut Lachenmann, 2017)CD (Version for Piano):Nicolas Hodges CD Wergo WER 7393 2 Bibliography:Ich bin nicht ,,pietistisch verformt. Ein Gesprach [von Jan Brachmann] mit dem Komponisten Helmut Lachenmann, in: FAZ vom 7. Juni 2018, p. 15.

World premiere of the piano version: Mito/Japan, June 17, 2017, World premiere of the orchestral version: Stuttgart, January 1, 2018, World premiere of the ensemble version: Frankfurt, December 9, 2020.

SKU: HH.HH094-FSC

ISBN 9790708041252.

Tchal Kouyrouk, the trusty steed of Toshtuk, Giant of the Steppes, is going to recover his master’s soul, which has been stolen, then bring Toshtuk back to his wife Kenjeke, who is pregnant with his child. In those far off days when Toshtuk, Kenjeke and Tchal Kouyrouk were living, the twelve tone row was evidently already a historical necessity. The rules surrounding its worship were to be respected: never interrupt the twelve tone row, never make irreverent remarks about it, never look at another system of pitch organization, apply the model of the twelve tone row to everything in the world to which it might be applicable.