Detlef Heusinger: Lulu's Dream

Detlef Heusinger · Lulu's Dream

From electric guitar to live electronics (and back)

Three works by Detlef Heusinger are compiled on this CD, in which the electric guitar plays a central role. Anyone who suspects a biographical commitment behind it is not wrong. But that's not saying much on its own, because what kid growing up in the 1970s wasn't fascinated by Jimi Hendrix? From the psychedelic sounds of the Stratocaster, the distortions caused by effect devices and overdriven amplifiers, the numerous new playing techniques, the overflowing, rousing improvisations? Heusinger had already trained on the classical guitar before he switched to the electric guitar at the age of 14 and, inspired by bands such as Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd, experienced his own stage performances with this instrument in various formations. But studying with Henze or Nono and the avant-garde canon of the forbidden actually leave little room for playing the electric guitar. The activities as a composer, conductor and later as head of the SWR experimental studio also do not allow any further obsessions.

Starting with the guitar concert 2nd Anniversary of Zabriskie Point (2005), however, Heusinger has returned to his old love. However, with a completely different perspective: the electric guitar is placed in the historical context of electronic music and thus reinvented as an instrument, so to speak. As a solo instrument, she conjures up a modern version of the almost timeless Lulu, in the solo concert she acts in a genre that seems long outdated, in the chamber music cast she is a mediator for the entire history of electronic music from the theremin to the present day. And a dash of nostalgia is fortunately allowed again in contemporary music.

4 crossroads

Music is an "art of transition far beyond the Wagnerian understanding," writes the music philosopher Christian Grüny. Modern (live) electronics could be used as evidence for this thesis. Because while Richard Wagner developed the art of transition in melody and harmony, today it can be related to the sound itself. Musical sounds can be viewed microscopically, analyzed, broken down into all acoustic components and reassembled from them. The 4 crossroads put such a Morphing to the heart of the action: It's about the transformation and transition of the sounds up to the complete merging of traditional and electronic instruments. Where, for example, the cello played in harmonics or the e-guitar interpreted with the e-bow merge into the theremin can hardly be determined by listening. Percussion instruments such as the waterphone or the flexatone with their long-lasting, sometimes inharmonious resonances support the tonal fusion processes. The e-guitar as the link between the instrumental and electronic world is still the most easily identifiable without playing itself to the fore.

They are formal 4 crossroads unbalanced: the first movement is clearly the longest, in which two trance-like sections with glissandi in the cello, bending in the guitar and organ-like chords in the synthesizer frame a moving middle section that is dominated by rapid movements of the keyboard. The second movement focuses entirely on the mystical sounds of the theremin; the very short third movement allows moving figures to wander through the instruments: from glockenspiel to guitar and, exceptionally, normally, ie arc played cello.

The interlude that follows consists of synthesized sounds of the Hammond organ and Novachord played by the composer - a homage to the pioneering days of electronic music in the 1940s and a tribute to the inventor of both instruments, Laurens Hammond!

Material from the interlude can also be found in the last movement, which, after an introduction whose disturbing colors could have come from David Lynch, leads to a fast-paced finale: over a consistently fast pulse, electric guitar, cello and theremin develop beguilingly melancholic melodic lines.

The live electronics control the sound via eight loudspeakers placed in a circle around the audience, use reverse effects, change the pitch as well as the amplitude and speed of the vibrato at micro intervals and set various filters. Through convolution (folding), the guitar is provided with the natural resonance of the piano on a case-by-case basis.

The 4 crossroads let us stroll through a museum of electronic sound generation, whose exhibits, laden with sentimental memories, are all brought to new life by the guitar for the duration of our tour.

Lulu's Dream

In January 2019, the premiere of Detlef Heusinger's new version of the 3rd act of the Lulu held by Alban Berg. Among other things, she brings theremin and electric guitar to the stage and supports a modernization of the work that is as careful as it is shimmering and lively with electronic effects. As if it were a condensate Lulu's Dream for electric guitar, which takes up motifs from the opera, condenses them and illuminates them anew. Who with the opera or the Lulu Suite familiar will recognize some things: the typical Berg combination of fourths with chromatic steps (which the world of the Tristan conjured up), the circus music (whose return in the opera's finale has a symmetry-forming function) - and as a lyrical highlight, Wedekind's lute song from the first intermezzo of the third act. The »Lulu reloaded«, as Heusinger calls his opera version, is enriched here with new harmonies. Berg paved the way from Wedekind's lute to Heusinger's electric guitar with his jazzy harmonies.

2nd Anniversary of Zabriskie Point

In his famous letter (»Cher Antonioni«) in 1980, Roland Barthes described Michelangelo Antonioni's films as the »art of the gaps«, in which the apparent truth is not mirrored, but rather the subtle meaning beneath the surface is explored. These words could also describe the task that Detlef Heusinger set himself with the electric guitar concert. As in Antonionis Blow Up the enlargement of a photograph reveals previously invisible details, in this music materials and details are revealed by their enlargement (e.g. by means of time stretching) made audible that normally remain beneath the surface.

About Michelangelo Antonioni's legendary film Zabriskie Point (1970) says Heusinger that he is still relevant because of his social criticism. In particular, the famous explosion scene, in which the imagination of the main protagonist lets the villa on the cliff with all its exhibits from American consumer society fly through the air in slow motion - in the original accompanied by the music of Pink Floyd - inspired the composer to use the Work title to refer back to Antonioni. The cinematic technique finds concrete expression in the interlude, which (as in the 4 crossroads inserted before the last movement) stretches the sounds of Hammond organ and Novachord using phase vocoder and filters in such a way that a musical slow motion is created. She microscopically examines the details of the sounds, revealing inner harmonies that would otherwise be imperceptible. At the same time, the scale developed by Roger N. Shepard is composed, in which the illusion of an infinitely rising sound is created. Analogous to Maurits C. Eschers Upstairs Downstairs and as in Antonioni's film scene, the movement seems caught in an infinite time loop...

A supposedly anachronistic genre is served here with the solo concerto, and the choice of solo instrument gives the commentary on the musical zeitgeist an ironic touch in two ways. But the electric guitar concerto is also a plea for a versatile instrument that harmonizes surprisingly well with the orchestra. As a kind of experimental studio in miniature format, only the Vox Tone Lab is used here, a classic among the effects devices for guitar music. Reverse, phasing and feedback effects create a distinctive sound that references the 1970s without being eclectic and looking to the future.

Stephen Jena