• Rational Melodies (1982)

“I am particularly pleased, because the result is so different from the solo flute recording of Eberhard Blum and the solo clarinet recording of Roger Heaton. It is not just another interpretation, but a case where interpreters have added so much insight to the music that the music itself has grown. When I was composing this music around 1982, I really thought I was simply writing melodies, but now these little pieces, though remaining melodies, have become something much more, something I would never have imagined. They have become what you hear on this CD.” — Tom Johnson

Tom Johnson (born 1939) belongs to a generation of American composers who founded musical minimalism. We know that this term was first applied to the visual arts, notably to Donald Judd, Robert Morris, and particularly Sol LeWitt, whom Johnson recognizes as an influence. However, it wasn't the repetition in itself that interested him, but rather the idea of music as a process. Steve Reich applied this idea brilliantly in his phase pieces. But after 1975, while the same Reich distanced himself from the radicalism of his first works, and younger American composers came out with music that was lusher, more expressive, even sentimental, Johnson insisted on the unrelenting rigor of formalized processes. The Rational Melodies, composed in 1982, may be regarded as the outcome of this research, first of all by their sheer quantity, but also by the fact that they summarize brilliantly and clearly procedures from the past, present, and future, which together characterize his work: combinations of cycles of different lengths (I, IV, XI, XVII, XVIII), permutations (VII, X), the paper-folding or “dragon” formula (II, XIX), other automata (XVI, XX), or self-similar structures (XIV, XV).

• Music and Questions (1988)

• Music with Mistakes (1993)

• Same or Different (2004)

„Transzendenz beginnt erst, wo der Mensch aufhört. Tom Johnson zeigt uns sehr genau den Punkt, an dem das passiert. Es ist der Punkt, an dem wir alles verstanden haben, was Rationalität verstehen kann in der Musik, was sich klar und deutlich sagen lässt, und wir bemerken, dass vor uns immer noch etwas ist, das uns in Atem hält: das Geheimnis, das den Klängen selbst entspringt.“ – Raoul Mörchen

• 73 Poems (1994) for multiple voices with electronic modification

Joan La Barbara's composition, 73 Poems, was commissioned, produced and recorded by Permanent Press (Brooklyn, NY) to accompany the publication of Kenneth Goldsmith's 73 Poems as a book and as a suite of lithographs. La Barbara’s works often involve multiple layers of her own voice, creating a kind of sonic canvas on which she throws splashes of vocal colors. On this CD, her potent combination of vocal and studio expertise makes it possible for her to represent in music some of the most distinctive features of Goldsmith’s visual texts.

• Salut für Caudwell (1977) Musik für zwei Gitarristen
• Les Consolations (1967–1968/1977–1978) für sechzehn Stimmen und Orchester
• Concertini (2005) Musik für Ensemble

• Kontrakadenz (1970–1971) für großes Orchester
• Klangschatten – mein Saitenspiel (1972) für 48 Streichinstrumente und drei Klaviere
• Fassade (1973 revidiert 1987) für großes Orchester

• Grido (2001/2002) Streichquartett Nr. 3
• Reigen seliger Geister (1988–1989) Streichquartett Nr. 2
• Gran Torso (1971–1972/1978) Musik für Streichquartett

• Gran Torso (1972)
• Reigen seliger Geister (1989)
• Grido (2000-2001)

For the JACK Quartet
“With a little help from my friends”
Once they called me their “father.” But when with them I feel fifty years younger, and they are my admired brothers. Each work - not only mine - when performed by the JACK, be it Beethoven or Feldman, becomes an incredible adventure of perception, a festival of intensity, touching our emotions and touching our intellect, making us remember that as human creatures we are full of possibilities and able to open our horizons infinitely. They are pure artists in that their humanity and virtuosity are one and the same: maybe they don’t know or aren’t aware of it, but that’s what they do: create happiness in the deepest sense.

— Helmut Lachenmann
Leonberg, February 14, 2014

The JACK Quartet follow up their acclaimed, best selling release of Iannis Xenakis’ complete string quartets (mode 209) with a disc devoted to another iconoclastic European composer, Helmut Lachenmann.

Lachenmann has created a unique sound world which he refers to as “instrumental musique concrete.” It is a world where the musical atom is not the note but the sound, which may be drawn from the instrument in all kinds of unusual ways.

Strange as the soundscape may be, Lachenmann believes that the fundamental principles of music is about finding shape and continuity, about revealing the unexpected and touching the familiar, and that the string quartet, in particular, is about conversation.

Even through all the use of extended techniques, this is still a music of gestures, phrases, even melodies.

The JACK Quartet, specialists in new music, are the perfect performers for such repertoire. This recording is endorsed by the composer.

Liner notes by Paul Griffiths.

• „ … Zwei Gefühle – Musik mit Leonardo …“ (1992) für Sprecher und Ensemble
• Wiegenmusik (1963) für Klavier solo
• Pression (1969–1970) für Violoncello solo
• Guero (1970) for Klavier solo
• Ein Kinderspiel (1980) für Klavier solo

Violin and viola players whisper over their instruments. A guitarist waits with the closest attention for the moment to make a gesture we might easily have missed. The tuba player rises to go over to the open piano, there to send sounds echoing into its interior. Two cellists, bowing with heavy pressure down near the tailpiece, produce an urgent rasping. From the timpanist comes the sudden fortissimo that seems to shock the music to a standstill...

Renowned German composer Helmut Lachenmann’s music is expressive in extraordinary ways, requiring the performers to play their instruments via unusual techniques, making for both compelling listening and viewing.

Lachenmann performs in and supervises these recordings with Ensemble Signal, one of America’s leading New Music ensembles. In addition to performing as narrator in „…Zwei Gefühle …“. Lachemann also is the soloist for three of his piano works.

These studio recordings followed an intensive four concert tour of this program. Lachenmann taught each musician of Ensemble Signal individually on his language of techniques for this project.

Liner notes by Paul Griffiths.

• „… Zwei Gefühle – Musik mit Leonardo …“ (1992) für Sprecher und Ensemble
• Wiegenmusik (1963) für Klavier solo
• Pression (1969–1970) für Violoncello solo
• Guero (1970) for Klavier solo
• Ein Kinderspiel (1980) für Klavier solo

Violin and viola players whisper over their instruments. A guitarist waits with the closest attention for the moment to make a gesture we might easily have missed. The tuba player rises to go over to the open piano, there to send sounds echoing into its interior. Two cellists, bowing with heavy pressure down near the tailpiece, produce an urgent rasping. From the timpanist comes the sudden fortissimo that seems to shock the music to a standstill...

Renowned German composer Helmut Lachenmann’s music is expressive in extraordinary ways, requiring the performers to play their instruments via unusual techniques, making for both compelling listening and viewing.

Lachenmann performs in and supervises these recordings with Ensemble Signal, one of America’s leading New Music ensembles. In addition to performing as narrator in „…Zwei Gefühle …“. Lachemann also is the soloist for three of his piano works.

These studio recordings followed an intensive four concert tour of this program. Lachenmann taught each musician of Ensemble Signal individually on his language of techniques for this project.

Liner notes by Paul Griffiths.

The DVD includes a 20 minute documentary of Lachenmann in conversation with Seth Brodsky (Assistant Professor of Music at The University of Chicago), filmed at New York’s Miller Theatre.