My Melodies für 8 Hörner & Orchester

The phenomenon of melody occupied Helmut Lachenmann for a long time. When he went to study in Venice at the end of the 1950s, he met Luigi Nono, a teacher who insisted strictly on a critical reflective approach to musical material. Nono had objected to any trace of linear progression in Lachenmann's composition sketches as a "tonal cell", as a melodic object that was seen as a refuge in a romanticizing tonality that had to be overcome. The impetus for the score of My Melodies came from a rehearsal of Lachenmann's opera Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern in Madrid in 2008: eight horns that formed a homogeneous and simultaneously complex instrument. The première took place ten years later. Compared to that première, My Melodies was expanded by 77 measures until 2023, with Lachenmann drawing from extra sketch material. It is rare for the composer to alter his own pieces after the première - but the sound ideas for the eight horns seem to have stayed with him. The bonus tracks offer short fragments from this concert recording of My Melodies. They show characteristic passages of the work and invite listeners to listen to specific sounds or sequences and familiarize themselves with Lachenmann's sonic world.