JACK Quartet: Lachenmann, Xenakis, Lim

Musikfest Berlin 2022

“The string has something magical about it as a material object,” says the composer Liza Lim about the thin strands of thread, gut, hair, metal or plastic that are spanned across a resonant body in or-der to make them vibrate. Every action inscribes itself into the material. The string forgets nothing. No wonder that the Australian calls her new quartet “String Creatures”. “The piece and the musi-cians are one organism: this consists of a number of bodies, each with their own consciousness and their own desires.” Helmut Lachenmann also thinks of the quartet as a multiple body. He composes a shout for the four strings, indicating it with the Italian word “grido”. Noises and energies form mel-odies, but also clouds and surfaces. In his quartet, first performed in 2001, the composer from Stuttgart creates a world in which the four instruments, bodies and souls enter a symbiosis in which the number of players, while clear, may not be distinguishable by listening. By contrast, the Greek word “tetra” means four. Iannis Xenakis dispatches the quartet on flightpaths beyond the graduated world of scales. The lines he traces are futuristic arcs, just like the spectacular buildings he de-signed as an engineer and assistant to the architect Le Corbusier.
The concerts of the Musikfest with contemporary music are part of the Month of contemporary Music.

• Helmut Lachenmann: »Grido« Streichquartett Nr. 3 (2000/2001)
• Iannis Xenakis: »Tetras« für Streichquartett (1993)
• Liza Lim: »String Creatures« für Streichquartett, Auftragswerk von Lucerne Festival, dem Melbourne Recital Centre und dem Miller Theatre at Columbia University, deutsche Erstaufführung (2022)

JACK Quartet

Christopher Otto, Violine
Austin Wulliman, Violine
John Pickford Richards, Viola
Jay Campbell, Violoncello

Die Saite als Datenträger? Von diesem Gedanken ließ sich Liza Lim für ihr jüngstes Streichquartett „String Creatures“ inspirieren, das beim Musikfest Berlin durch das Jack Quartet seine Deutsche Erstaufführung erlebt.