Venice, 25 July 2008
The German composer, Helmut Lachenmann, a key figure in contemporary musical thinking, has been awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 52nd International Festival of Contemporary Music (2 - 18 October 2008). The proposal for the award going to Helmut Lachenmann came from the Festival Director, Luca Francesconi, and was approved by the Board of Directors of the Venice Biennale, chaired by Paolo Baratta. The awards ceremony for the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement will take place on Friday 3 October at the Teatro alle Tese in the Arsenale di Venezia at 8 p.m., during the Festival.
In 2006 the award was given to Friedrich Cerha and in 2007 to Giacomo Manzoni.
“Much loved and controversial, the music of Helmut Lachenmann”, reads the motivation, “has had and has a great influence on the composers of at least two generations. The highly radical and utopian conception of the times of a dissected sound, stripped of a semantic weight to achieve a state that can be defined ‘mineral’, has emblematically marked the extreme consequences of the structuralist musical avant-garde. But at the same time, and perhaps this is the most interesting and also surprising aspect, he has opened a new world of sound, provocatively forcing the limits of perception. Born of a negative conception of the semantic horizon, he has finally revealed a new idea of language and, so to speak, a new form of ‘virginity’ of sound”.
The ties between Lachenmann and Venice and its culture are historic and deep: aged little more than 20, he settled on the Giudecca to study with Luigi Nono, and soon became one of his closest friends. It was at the Biennale di Venezia in the 25th International Festival of Contemporary Music (1962) that he enjoyed his debut as a composer, with Fünf Strophen performed by the instrumental group of the Teatro La Fenice. His music is today performed throughout the world, and also recorded, analysed and discussed. “The Wire”, the ‘Bible’ of non-academic avant-garde music, dedicated a lengthy portrait and interview to him in 2003.
He returned to the Venice Biennale in 1993 with Mouvement (vor der Erstarrung), performed by the Ensemble Modern and again in 2006 with Concertini, performed by the Klangforum Wien. This year, Lachenmann will be present at the 52nd International Festival of Contemporary Music with two of his most important works: Schreiben (2003) for a large orchestra (Orchestra Nazionale Sinfonica della RAI) and Grido (2001) for string quartet (Arditti Quartet).
“In an age when we are surrounded by music in excess –Helmut Lachenmann said–, our powers of listening are both over- and underchallenged and are administered in that spirit. Our task today is to liberate those powers by penetrating deep into the structure of what we hear. Listening must become perception, it must be deliberately unearthed, delved into, provoked. This, it seems to me, is the true tradition of our Western art.”
