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: PR.114422590

ISBN 9781491134771. UPC: 680160685493.

Chen Yi describes the cheery interplay of HAPPY TUNE as one instrument playing a lively melody, while the other plays a vivid rhythmic pattern as accompaniment. The pair of instruments imitates primitive Chinese folk song singing, as well as the traditional wind instrument sheng, a mouth pipe organ. One of the composer’s favorite themes to develop for different textures, HAPPY TUNE is a variant from Chen Yi’s Three Bagatelles from China West, both versions appearing in several scorings.
Composed to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, HAPPY TUNE was originally written as a violin/viola duet for Kim Kashkashian and Tien-Hsin Cindy Wu, and premiered at the festival on June 16, 2018. The flute/cello adaptation was created in 2021.I fondly remember being invited by the GLCMF (directed by Prof. James Tocco) to be the dual Stone Composers-in-Residence with my husband Zhou Long, along with the Stone Composer Fellow Nicholas Omiccioli in 2011. We had a dozen of our chamber works performed excellently by the outstanding chamber ensembles and musicians during the week, meeting enthusiastic audiences and supporters of new music in various venues at the festival. The experience was truly inspiring, and I created HAPPY TUNE to honor the GLCMF, with hopes to carry on the high spirit in our new music society.In this duet, when one instrument plays a lively melody, the other plays a vivid rhythmic pattern in the accompaniment. The pair of string instruments imitates the sound of primitive Chinese folk song singing, as well as the Chinese traditional wind instrument sheng, a mouth pipe organ.