Piano
SKU:
BR.EB-9253
Composed
by Helmut Lachenmann.
Solo instruments;
stapled. Edition
Breitkopf.
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.
New music
(post-2000). Score.
Composed 2016/17/20. 12
pages. Duration 8'.
Breitkopf and Haertel #EB
9253. Published by
Breitkopf and Haertel
(BR.EB-9253).
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.
