"…Two feelings" -- by Helmut Lachenmann
Music with Leonardo for speakers and instrumental ensemble

A film by Uli Aumüller

Chamber Music Ensemble Neue Musik Berlin
Peter Rundel, Conductor.
Documentary for Bavarian TV, 1998
Camera: Christopher Rowe, bvk, Günther Uttendorfer, Frank Zeller, Kathleen Herbst, / Sound: Georg Morawietz, Gerd Rische, Henry Dürheim / Film Editor: Bernhard Schönherr

Beta SP 4:3, 60 min., Stereo

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10 Years later …Helmut Lachenmann talking with Wolfgang Rihm
Film text (in German)
Radio-Essay (in German)
Interview with Neue Musikzeitung (in German)
Review Berliner Morgenpost 1999 (in German)
Review Frankfurter Allgemeine 1998 (in German)
Review Frankfurter Allgemeine 1999 (in German)
Review Frankfurter Rundschau 1998 (in German)

Two feelings overcame Leonardo da Vinci while looking into the mouth of a volcano which had erupted shortly before: Fear and desire. The fear of death, and the desire for knowledge - and at the same time the fear of what knowledge he might discover on the other side of the boundary between life and death down below him

Leonardo’s short prose fragment contains a variation on the Platonic cave parable and at the same time an erotic motif. It inspired Helmut Lachenmann to compose " ... Two Feelings ... Music with Leonardo for speakers and instrumental ensemble “, a fiery, Mediterranean intermezzo for his opera “The Little Match Girl”.

Although the text describes a volcanic eruption, nothing could be further from Lachenmann’s intentions than to illustrate this event musically. It is rather the nature of the sounds themselves which erupts, their naked precision on the consciously calculated front, and another nature on the back - speculative so to speak, and unconscious -, their true nature, expression of a longing for transcendence –which Lachenmann declines to further exemplify. "I explain everything I can explain until I come to the point where the words can no longer suffice", he says.

And exactly this precision and the process of development, how music slowly arises from a fullness of unusual and peculiar noises and figurative sounds, are the topic of Uli Aumüller’s film He observes the musicians of the Chamber Music Ensemble Neue Musik Berlin from the first rehearsal until the public performance in Berlin’s Akademie der Künste, how they rehearse every technical nuance until they achieve a level of virtuosity which has Helmut Lachenmann in raptures.

Alongside this reflection on music and the search for knowledge, we experience the co-operation between conductor Peter Rundel, the composer and the musicians, who exceed the bounds of there own possibilities with great enthusiasm and obvious joy as if it were just a walk in a park during which, from time to time, one looks a little more precisely left and right.

"I went for a walk with Nono once", Lachenmann says, "We talked about understanding oneself. Suddenly he stopped at a tree with a rather cracked bark and said, ‘have a look at this structure, if you have really seen this, then you have understood yourself.’ Perception of things which are usually around us every day, but we don't notice. Perception of oneself or self experience. I regard this as the topic of music, at least today. Ever since music reflects on itself, it must see itself as a kind of perception art. "

Despite much seriousness and commitment to the cause, there was also much laughter during the shooting of this film. And perhaps it is this laughter, the momentary feeling of happiness showing through again and again, that makes the music of Helmut Lachenmann, its necessity and consequence, its wealth of ideas and its tonal richness more profound and manifest than several hours of interviews and theoretical excursions.

The film not only presents a new look at Lachenmann’s working methods and his depths but beyond this a person who comes to the music, a playful person, filled with the longing for knowledge.