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This article is an attempt to classify and describe the array of new techniques that
Helmut Lachenmann has invented or exploited for string instruments. I mention features
of each extended technique and give examples of where they occur in the three string
quartets. I have also created a chart to help readers identify these new sounds.
Keywords: Extended Techniques; Listening; String Quartet
1 Introduction
A dening feature of Lachenmanns music is a subversion of inherited musical norms
through which he comes to terms with his musical genes. Clear examples of this are
to be found in his writing for string instruments in his three string quartets: Gran
Torso (1971/1972, with later revisions), Reigen seliger Geister (1989), and Grido (2000/
2001, revised 2002). In this essay I shall dene the broad features of the norms of
playing technique that Lachenmann confronts (section 1.2) and describe the
abnormal techniques as seen in the quartets, which arise from this encounter (section
2). I will also suggest a loose taxonomy of sounds and techniques, which point to
their compositional signicance (Figure 2, discussed in section 3). In conclusion, I
shall discuss the signicance of these sounds and techniques to interpreter, audience
and composer (section 4).
Where I refer to Lachenmanns own words, they are taken from Musik als
existentielle Erfahrung (MaeE; Lachenmann, 1996). All translations and errors
pertaining thereto are my own.
1.1 Notation
I will not spend much time discussing or explaining Lachenmanns notation. His
publisher has to some extent provided a key to musical symbols, but not always to
ISSN 0749-4467 (print)/ISSN 1477-2256 (online) 2005 Taylor & Francis Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/0749446042000293592
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instructions in German next to the stave. Should any reader prefer to contact me
rather than the composer for clarication, I will be delighted to help if I can. In this
article, however, I want to describe not only how Lachenmanns new sounds are
produced and how they strike the ear, but also, more importantly, I would like to
discuss the signicance to Lachenmann and to us of these sounds and techniques.
The use of visual symbols to capture the music is for me to some extent a
distraction from this discussion. What then does one lose if one discusses new
sounds and techniques without discussing notation? The answer for me depends on
the composer. Without going into Barthesian or Schoenbergian discussions about
the relationship between text as seen, text as heard and text as neither seen nor
heard, I believe that some composers conceive their music in textual/symbolic form
more than others. Iannis Xenakis, for instance, conceived of structures that he
discovered and invented in symbolic form. He could not illustrate them on an
instrument and did not discover them by experimentation on an instrument,
although he had a very clear concept of how his works should sound (string
players, for example, should never use vibrato unless specically requested to do
so). The irrelevance of metre in much of Xenakis music and the probabilistic
distribution of events in time suggest to me that the notation is an antecedent of
the music as it sounds in a way quite unlike the case with Lachenmann.
Lachenmann set out to discover new sounds and techniques for producing them on
string instruments. Then he adapted classical notation so that the players know
what to do. In that sense, I believe, the music is self-standing to a larger extent than
that of Xenakis by the time it is written down. However, one important insight into
the conceptual history of Lachenmanns techniques is the division and dismantling
of the component parts of each technique. By that I mean that established and
normal classical techniques consist of particular combinations of left-hand and
right-hand activity. For instance: a classical dolce, legato sound is made up of
vibrato (i.e. left-hand technique) and bow speed, bow inclination and the contact
point of the bow on the string between the bridge and the ngerboard (i.e. righthand technique). Lachenmann has separated out these elements (whether
deconstructed is the proper word is a question for another discussion) and uses
different staves for left-hand and right-hand activity, which allows him, for
instance, to specify that the hands should be rhythmically independent (Reigen, m.
109, violin 1). Lachenmanns notation also allows him to make clear where he takes
a sound which would be continuous in classical music, but which he has dissolved
into its molecular parts. I shall limit myself to one example of notation, and discuss
these and other issues, in section 2.9.
1.2 The Norms of String Technique
For the average listener, the expected sound of string instruments in classical (as
opposed to popular) music, whether of the present or the past, is clearly and rather
narrowly dened. While the exploration of period practices has made the sound of
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connes and very existence of this conformist model to which he was reacting. In
response, he developed a formal language in sound, no less rigorous or exible than
the principles of diatonic harmony, which the European tradition had bequeathed
him. His language may contain chords, clusters, contrasts and counterpoint, but they
are frequently constructed from sounds related only by timbre, colour, intensity and
duration.
2.2 Light Pressure Unpitched Bowed Sounds
The hairs of the bow are used to produce sustained sounds, as in classical music; but
Lachenmann exploits the unpitched, white-noise-like elements of bowed sounds to
produce a colour palette of timbres. In classical playing, much attention is given to
choosing the point between bridge and ngerboard where the bow is to be drawn (the
contact point), the downward pressure on the bow exerted by the right-hand ngers
and the speed at which the bow is drawn. By using a light bow drawn relatively fast
over the ngerboard (autato), one can avoid producing a pitched sound. A classical
player would say that the string was failing to speak properly. Lachenmann would
say, I suspect, that the string in his music is speaking, but in a different language. This
is often guaranteed by Lachenmann by using the ngers of the left hand to dampen
the open strings and thus limit their vibration. What emerges is a sound akin to soft
breathing. The timbre of breathing sounds can be altered by changing the shape of
the mouth. The effect desired by Lachenmann is analogous to this. Because (hitherto,
at least) it is impossible to specify timbral colours as precisely as pitch, Lachenmann
instead species the contact point, or place on the instrument, where the bow is to be
drawn. This tends to produce, fairly reliably, timbres that are darker (e.g. when
bowed over the ngerboard) or lighter (e.g. nearer to the bridge). When the strings
are being bowed, this variation in timbral darkness (or lightness) is entirely
predictable from classical techniquelonger lengths of string (as when playing sul
tasto) vibrate at a lower frequency than shorter lengths of string (as when playing sul
ponticello). Although the use of the bowstick is discussed below, this is the point to
note that a subclass of these unpitched light pressure sounds consists of those
produced exactly as described in the paragraph above, but using the stick rather than
the hair of the bow.
The situation is less clear when parts of the instrument other than the strings are
bowed. It seems that the mass of wood being made to vibrate determines the colour
of the timbre. Although all parts of string instruments are physically interconnected,
some parts are better at transmitting vibrations than others. Hence bowing directly
on the bridge often produces a dark timbre, because the bridge is, by design, very
good at transmitting vibrations to the rest of the instrument. The tuning pegs, by
contrast, produce a light sound. Although tuning pegs are identical, it is rare for all
four pegs to produce identical timbres when bowed; though bad transmitters of
vibration, they do transmit enough for differing proximate masses of wood to
produce different timbres. The mute (old-fashioned wooden three-pronged) is an
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an instrument other than the strings (e.g. pegs, scroll, tailpiece). It is no doubt in
part to prevent these accidents that many of the more fragile playing techniques
in Lachenmanns music bear dynamic markings in quotation marks. Thus ff, as
opposed to ff, indicates to the performer that the absolute dynamic in decibels of
a passage can never be very loud and that it would destroy the effect to try to
produce a loud sound, but that the loudest secure version of this sound should be
played and that it is a prominent voice in the music at that point. In this category
also belongs Lachenmanns instruction to end a note by stopping the bow dead
on the string and not lifting it away, so that the note may ring on. This neatly
subverts the almost unconscious convention of classical technique that the
tapering of the end of a note should be as carefully controlled as the initial attack
of the note.
2.5 Heavy Pressure Unpitched Bowed Sounds
It is arguable whether this category is represented. As pointed out in the previous
paragraph, increased bow pressure on the string acts to stop the string at a coherent
pitch. Therefore if the string moves at all, even for a single click, it is difcult for no
perception of pitch to take place.
2.6 Normal Pressure Bowed Sounds
Sounds belonging to this category subvert various norms. Perhaps the most
arresting sound is the backward tape or yapping sound (yapsend in German).
This inverts the process of sharply decelerating the bow after the initial attack to
produce a sharply delineated decay. The same process is at work in normal
speech, so that the tape of a speech played backward is remarkable for its groups
of vowel sounds cut off by a reversed ictus, hence backward tape. In this effect,
the bow accelerates sharply from a low speed to set the string ringing (often on a
harmonic) only for the left hand abruptly to dampen the sound completely,
producing the opposite of an ictus, as the frequency and amplitude of the strings
vibration decrease almost instantaneously.
This is also the place to mention the use of scordatura, or detuning of the
strings. It is clear from Lachenmanns own writings (see Lachenmann, 1996,
passim) that the strong, familiar aural avour of string instruments tuned in fths
was an element that could not be left untouched in his enterprise of subverting
the safe, bourgeois, iconic legacy of classical music (or serious music; ernste
Musik, as the Germans say). In fact, in Reigen, in a passage where the strings are
suddenly to be detuned in a random way, Lachenmann specically asks that
intervals of a fth be avoided (m. 317). Beyond the cultural meaning of
composing for detuned strings, there are other obvious advantages: the expected
timbres of open strings on string instruments are suddenly called into question.
Also, techniques that work best, or only on open strings (e.g. pizzicato uido,
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produced. This happens because the left hand is used only to dampen the open
strings; the point at which the bow stick hits the string, as with over-pressured bow
hair, is the point that determines the vibrating length of the string and thus the
resultant pitch. The bow stick is also used as percussion instrument where it is forced
to bounce on a string that has been made to vibrate by a left-hand pizzicato.
2.8 The Fingers
Lachenmanns abnormal techniques extend to the ngers of both hands. Left-hand
pizzicato is a familiar feature of classical technique. Sometimes one left-hand nger
plucks a note that is being stopped by a different left-hand nger. But
Lachenmanns use of what he calls pizzicato uido is unique. In this technique,
an open string is plucked by a left-hand nger. Almost immediately afterwards, the
bow hair tension screw (and occasionally the bow stick) is placed lightly on the still
vibrating string to produce a stopped pitch that will ring on long enough to be
changed either by a glissando or a vibrato with the tension screw/bow stick. The
sound is not unlike a Hawaiian guitar, or a pedal steel guitar. Thus the role of the
hands has been not so much subverted as inverted in respect of classical technique:
the left hand supplies the impulse and the right hand stops the string; the pizzicato,
moreover, has turned from a short note of xed pitch to a legato sustained sound
of variable pitch. The use of light left-hand pressure has already been mentioned.
Lachenmann frequently uses intermediate left-hand pressures, which lie between
those of classical technique, where the left-hand ngers either depress the strings
rmly enough to produce a stopped pitch, or lightly enough to produce a
harmonic. Care must be taken to maintain an even pressure wherever the stopping
point may be on the string. In extremely high positions (11th position and above),
it is sometimes necessary to depress the strings either side of the played string in
order to prevent three strings sounding at once.
Lachenmann also uses the ngernails of both hands: when plucking the edge of the
bridge, for instance, in order to create several versions of the same sound.
Lachenmann also uses the left-hand ngers to produce a sound not by pressing the
string, but by releasing it (rosin on strings, and general stickiness, causes the strings to
start ringingLachenmann exploits this usually problematic phenomenon in a
manner analogous to his use of the sound caused by a sudden stop in bow travel as
opposed to the carefully graduated deceleration of classical bowing technique).
2.9 Notationan Example
In order to preserve the character of Lachenmanns handwritten playing material, I
have cropped the image in Figure 1 rather loosely. The bottom two staves beneath the
time signature are the second violin part. The upper of these two staves indicates the
bowing technique. The lower stave shows the resultant pitch (shown as
approx[imate] but not indeterminate) and the left-hand technique. On the upper
Figure 1 Second Violin Part, from Lachenmanns Second String Quartet, Reigen seliger
Geister, p. 62, mm. 369 370. # 1989, Breitkopf & Hartel, Wiesbaden.
stave, the full instruction to the left of the line in the original is arco gepresst, Bogen
in Faust, Zeigenger auf Bogenstangenrucken gelegt (press the bow, bow in st,
index nger placed on the back of the bow stick).
The crenellated descending line is a representation of the closely spaced, almost
continuous clicks that are produced. The descent of this line through the upper
stave shows that the contact point of the bow should shift gradually from
somewhere near the bridge to somewhere over the ngerboard. It is this shift in
contact point which changes the vibrating length of the strings (which have been
specied two bars earlier as the detuned third and fourth, D and G, strings) and
hence the resultant pitch as shown in the lower stave. See section 2.4 for an
explanation of this effect.
Note the marking mp express[iv]. Here is a keyhole glance at Lachenmanns view of
his own music. The origin of these playing techniques may have been a highly
organised programme of subversion, but the music that Lachenmann produces using
these techniques is often warm, gentle and expressive. Interpreters forget this at their,
and the musics, peril.
The syncopated notes beneath the lower stave are in fact instructions to dampen
and undampen the strings in the given rhythm. The notehead O signies an
undampened open string. The notehead signies that the open string should be
dampened lightly with the left hand. See again section 2.4 above for an explanation of
this effect.
In general, it is the precisely specic nature of the notation that is most relevant to
the theme of this article. Even the word approx. in this example is subject to a
footnote in the original (the given pitches show what ought to result from the
shifting of the pressed bowing action). Lachenmann has specied how to play,
separating each hand; then he has explained what the result should be, although this
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is contingent on the correct technique being used (and not vice versa). Before all of
this, he indicates the dynamic and expressive character of the music. Thus, the
notation illustrates the composers order of priorities in creating his music and the
position of playing techniques within that order.
3 A Taxonomy of Sounds (Figure 2)
In Figure 2, abbreviations of the references GT, RE and GR refer respectively to Gran
Torso, Reigen seliger Geister and Grido; bar numbers follow work titles; V1, V2, VA
and VC refer respectively to violin 1, violin 2, viola and cello.
The taxonomy in Figure 2 is not original, but a schematic representation of
Lachenmanns own groupings and categories in MaeE passim. It is clear from
Lachenmanns own accounts that the transitions and metamorphosing of musical
material from one category in Figure 2 to another are a fundamental engine of
narrative progress. For that reason, I have categorised the playing techniques in a way
that does not neatly match the groupings of the previous discussion. My reason for
doing this was that my interpreters view of the playing techniques themselves and
Lachenmanns view of them as a composer are two separate subjects; I wished,
however, to nod to both subjects even if I did not discuss both of them in equal
detail.
The taxonomy does not pretend to be an exhaustive account of all of the playing
techniques that could be considered abnormal. I have concentrated on those which I
felt needed most explanation.
4 Conclusions
4.1 The Signicance of the Playing Techniques for Interpreters
While learning these techniques, I would argue that they need to have no signicance
at all. What is paramount is a patient mastery of the sounds. That a classical son le is
being subverted by a spharisch long note is irrelevant if the player allows a clear pitch
to contaminate and poison the sound even for a nanosecond. Obedience is more
important than faith. These techniques use the instruments in ways unimagined by
their makers. If performed carefully, they will not damage an instrument. However,
they clearly challenge the player to accept the sounds produced into the canon of
classical concert music sounds.
The structure of Lachenmanns music grows from the nature of the techniques
themselves: rubbed sounds, for instance, may transform from one instrument to
another into short, impulse sounds. This transition may be a vital link between two
sections of a piece and so great precision is vital in obeying the composers
instructions. The techniques, in short, are not optional when playing the musicthey
are the music. One could not, for instance, transcribe Lachenmanns three string
quartets for piano four hands; the music would simply disappear.
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