Towards an exploration of Adornian aesthetics, social engagement, heritage of the past and development of the new in the music of Helmut Lachenmann

Contemporary work comments show that many contemporary composers feel a need to legitimize their works, a process of self-reflection in which Adorno's philosophy is both influential and controversial. Studies on the contemporary influence of Adorno's notion of musical material, however, often tend towards unilateral projections of Adorno's ideas on the present or reflections based on typologies. In contrast, a study aiming at a critical reflection on contemporary philosophical assumptions on the basis of the analysis and comparison of specific compositions, appears to be more fruitful. In an attempt to grasp the relation between philosophical constellations and analytical techniques, aesthetic assumptions are necessarily posited, while the actual relation between idea and technique still needs to be discovered by means of the analysis of musical artworks. This methodology will be illustrated by a practical aesthetic and score-based analysis of four notorious compositions of Helmut Lachenmann: Pression for cello and Guero for grand piano (1969), the piano cycle Ein Kinderspiel (1980) and NUN (Musik für Flöte, Posaune, Männerstimmen und Orchester, 1999). Like many composers after the Second World War, Lachenmann was well aware of the social responsibility of the artist. Yet, unlike the rather palpable social and political commitment of Luigi Nono, who incorporated in Il canto sospeso (1955-56) letters of persons sentenced to death, Lachenmann was on his guard for imposing his own ideology on music and obtaining "authority" which does not arise "from the specific law of composition, its own logic and immanent correctness, but from the gesture from which the work turns itself to the listener" (Adorno). "For the composer, there is no way to compromise", Lachenmann explains. Consequently, Lachenmann does not require the authority of his compositions as already acquired, but tries to uncover and follow the inherent tendency of the musical material, a process which will be shown to be necessarily historical and dialectical...status: publishe