Sound-producing actions are so magnified as to assume the structural role of conventional tones. It's a bit like viewing a fabric from the back, with the rough and fraying knots revealed and the pattern dimly perceived.
Lachenmann's textural imagination and handling of context have become increasingly impressive. His aim was once to jolt an audience out of complacent listening habits, and in the mature, large-scale work we are drawn into a vortex in which the cumulative dynamic of local events develops a thrilling momentum. Fellow composer Wolfgang Rihm remarks how the basic tempo of the music is fast. Even in the agonizingly long moments of stasis we sense the rapid foundation, the sudden flash of particles racing along the ground and their hidden suction.
Lachenmann, Rihm suggests, "is perhaps the only composer who truly composes classically."
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