Name: My Melodies
Start: 2025-02-14T20:00:00
Location: Hessischer Rundfunk

Matthias Hermann

Alexander Waite

Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra

Helmut Lachenmann's music for eight horns doesn't seek new sounds, but rather a new way of listening. Also featured is a composition by the British composer Christian Mason, which conceives of the orchestra as a vast instrument of resonance. And interspersed among these is Lachenmann's first major piano work – another listening experience at Forum N. "I always have to do what I can't do," Lachenmann confesses in his notes on "My Melodies" – music that transcends the concept of soloists in the classical sense and even the concept of any melody whatsoever. Lachenmann understands listening to music as a particular capacity for perception. For him, to engage with familiar instruments and tonal material in a new way, to play and resonate with them anew, means to set perception in motion anew and to make it a personal experience. “‘My Melodies’ are not ‘my melodies’ – there aren’t any – but rather, they evoke Frank Sinatra: they convey ‘my way’ of melodies in the creative use of sonic means.” The hr Symphony Orchestra, long familiar with Lachenmann’s musical language, will be joined by two further Lachenmann experts on this evening, unprecedented in many dimensions.