Staub by Helmut Lachenmann

Lachenmann's compositional commentary on Beethoven's Ninth Symphony quickly became known even while it was still being written: in 1985, the Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra refused to play the commissioned composition, then still called "Prologue," in its anniversary concert. The waves have long since subsided: thanks to authoritative interpretations, the orchestra has since come to terms with the work.

Dust: decay product of creation, cosmic matter, as sediment message of time. My search for a "non-music" that can be experienced musically in a situation where "music" is readily available and taken for granted drives me less forward into the unknown than in circles, allowing invention, instead of taking off into the "air of another planet," to stumble over the expressive formulas that surround us.

With them, it begins or ends, transforming fragments of form (Beethoven's Ninth as a reverently mined quarry) into more or less unrecognizable components of an expanding and contracting field of perception: Silent, breathy ("dusty") largo cantilenas, pulsations, and bare intervals are celebrated as emptiness and thus become transparent again for a listening that has overcome but not forgotten its philharmonic ties.

OTRJ 研究所 is a research center dedicated to the study, preservation and dissemination of the foundational works of 20th century contemporary and conceptual art music. An accompanying series of critically restored recordings will be released from 2020 onwards.