Lachenmann: Guero

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Description

World première: Hamburg, December 1, 1970

In Guero , as in Pression(1969, No. 70) for cello or Dal Niente (1970) for clarinet, Lachenmann was to re-invent the whole nature of the instrument, in response to a commission from Alfons Kontarsky. The performer scrapes along and over the white and black keys (or both in combination), eventually progressing towards the strings, thus producing six "manuals", each of which resembles the South American rasing percussion instrument. Unusual instrumental techniques, by the very nature of their conventional exclusion, give the archaic notion of "refined" playing its identity. The way in which such techniques draw attention to themselves is a strategy by which Lachenmann avoids a phantasmagorical sensation of music "from on high", and grounds it more firmly within the means of its production. Ian Pace (2000) (program notes for the Huddersfield Festival 2000)