Reigen seliger Geister (German for Dance of the Blessed Spirits) is a string quartet composed by Helmut Lachenmann in 1989.
This is Helmut Lachenmann's second string quartet, after Gran Torso (1971–1972) and before Grido (2001). The title is based on the name Ballet des ombres heureuses , from Gluck's opera Orfeo ed Euridice .
The German composer wrote a text on this work entitled "On my Second String Quartet" (1995–2002), published in Écrits et Entretiens. [1]
It takes about half an hour to execute.
This quartet is characterized by its various playing modes, which require to play first flautando, then by playing the bow on the chevilles or the scroll of the instrument, then by "rocket sounds", executed by pushing the bow on the string in an accelerated manner, [2] or in pizzicato. At some point, musicians must use a plectrum and place their instrument on their knees like a guitar.
This unique guitar game is organized around an alternation of muffled sounds and resonant strings. [2]
A final focus occurs at the end of the quartet, when the instrumentalists play "perforated" sounds by excessively pressing the bow on the string. Here again, the perception is disturbed when it is discovered that beyond a sound that seems violent, torn ("perforated"), excessive (because it is too rich), there are melodic paths up and down, depending on whether the bow is moved along the string, towards the bridge or towards the fingerboard. [2]
The violoncello ( VY-ə-lən-CHEL-oh, Italian pronunciation:[vjolonˈtʃɛllo]), normally simply abbreviated as cello ( CHEL-oh), is a middle pitched bowed (sometimes plucked and occasionally hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, C2, G2, D3 and A3. The viola's four strings are each an octave higher. Music for the cello is generally written in the bass clef, tenor clef, alto clef and treble clef used for higher-range passages.
The double bass, also known as the upright bass, the acoustic bass, the bull fiddle, or simply the bass, is the largest and lowest-pitched chordophone in the modern symphony orchestra. Similar in structure to the cello, it has four or five strings.
In musical instrument classification, string instruments, or chordophones, are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner.
Pizzicato is a playing technique that involves plucking the strings of a string instrument. The exact technique varies somewhat depending on the type of instrument:
The term string quartet refers to either a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play them. Many composers from the mid-18th century onwards wrote string quartets. The associated musical ensemble consists of two violinists, a violist, and a cellist. The double bass is almost never used in the ensemble mainly because it would sound too loud and heavy.
Helmut Friedrich Lachenmann is a German composer of contemporary classical music. Associated with the "instrumental musique concrète" style, Lachenmann is alongside Wolfgang Rihm as among the leading German composers of his time.
The Arditti Quartet is a string quartet founded in 1974 and led by the British violinist Irvine Arditti. The quartet is a globally recognized promoter of contemporary classical music and has a reputation for having a very wide repertoire. They first became known taking into their repertoire technically challenging pieces. Over the years, there have been personnel changes but Irvine Arditti is still at the helm, leading the group. The repertoire of the group is mostly music from the last 50 years with a strong emphasis on living composers. Their aim from the beginning has been to collaborate with composers during the rehearsal process. However, unlike some other groups, it is loyal to music of a classical vein and avoids cross-genre music. The Quartet has performed in major concert halls and cultural festivals all over the world and has the longest discography of any group of its type. In 1999, it won the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize for lifetime achievement, being the first and only group to date to receive this award.
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A variety of musical terms are encountered in printed scores, music reviews, and program notes. Most of the terms are Italian, in accordance with the Italian origins of many European musical conventions. Sometimes, the special musical meanings of these phrases differ from the original or current Italian meanings. Most of the other terms are taken from French and German, indicated by Fr. and Ger., respectively.
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In music, extended technique is unconventional, unorthodox, or non-traditional methods of singing or of playing musical instruments employed to obtain unusual sounds or timbres.
Philippe Boesmans was a Belgian pianist, composer and academic teacher. He studied to be a pianist at the Royal Conservatory of Liège, and was self-taught as a composer, influenced by the Liège Group of Henri Pousseur, André Souris, and Célestin Deliège, and by attending the Darmstädter Ferienkurse. He worked for the Radio Télévision Belge de la Communauté Française (RTBF) from 1961, as a producer from 1971.
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Rebecca Saunders is a London-born composer who lives and works freelance in Berlin. In a 2017 Classic Voice poll of the greatest works of art music since 2000, Saunders' compositions received the third highest total number of votes (30), surpassed only by the works of Georg Friedrich Haas (49) and Simon Steen-Andersen (35). In 2019, writers of The Guardian ranked Skin (2016) the 16th greatest work of art music since 2000, with Tom Service writing that "Saunders burrows into the interior world of the instruments, and inside the grain of Fraser's voice [...] and finds a revelatory world of heightened feeling."
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