Lachenmann e la storia del quartetto d’archi

Lachenmann’s three string quartets are considered as compositions that break any kind of connection with a genre tradition. In fact Lachenmann has a strong sense of tradition, which he challenges to extract elements of the development of a new and independent thought. This paper examines the dialectic relation between these works and the genre tradition from two correlative points of view: “sound” and “form”. Analysis shows that Lachenmann, through innovation and a variety of sonorous means, remains faithful to a logical-discursive idea of composition. Even when the flow of time seems suspended one feels the unfolding of a sound process that reflects vital cycles of transitions from empty to full, from action to inaction and back again. This can be described in similar terms in Beethoven’s later works. In Beethoven’s last quartets, like Lachenmann’s and Nono’s, the historical situation of disillusion is born of ideological crises and loss of ideals. Contrary however to that of their contemporaries, their music never loses the tension of something that could occur; founded on a truly utopic dimension.