Helmut Lachenmann: 'The Little Match Girl'

Between 1990 and 1996, Helmut Lachenmann undertook a major project - his first work of music theatre. *The Little Match Girl - Music with Pictures* has remained his only work of musical drama to date, even though the composition was written over 20 years ago. Engaging with contemporary music is, in most cases, no simple matter and requires a certain discipline in one's approach to the theses put forward here. In the case of Lachenmann's *The Little Match Girl*, understanding both the music of the work and the composer's motivations behind it is at once simple and difficult. On the one hand, this very 'opera' - with its musical language, which at first listen appears strikingly bold and stems from Lachenmann's concept of 'musique concrète instrumentale' - can make it easier to 'get to know' new music; on the other hand, the musical realisation and the treatment of the texts underpinning this musical theatre constitute a fundamental philosophical concept that requires a more detailed examination of the composer and his work.