Helmut Lachenmann

Helmut Lachenmann is a German composer whose music utilizes instruments in unconventional ways, often in combination with other gestures and means, in order to produce unexpected sounds and expression. Many listeners might not call it music, but that is precisely his aim: for people to re-examine what the contemporary definition of music is. He met Luigi Nono at the Darmstadt Summer Music Course and was greatly influenced by him, as well as by Olivier Messiaen a little later. In the late 1960s, Lachenmann started composing works where structure was an acute expressive device; sounds were no longer abstract expression or symbolic of ideals, but rather the results of physical effort. This is evident in works such as Ausklang for piano and orchestra (1984-85) and the opera Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern (1988-96). He continued to compose into the 2010s, producing chamber, keyboard, and orchestral works.