Tableau is a piece for orchestra composed by the German composer Helmut Lachenmann in 1988/89. It is a significant work of “musique concrète instrumentale”, a style that focuses on generating a wide array of sounds, including noise and friction, from traditional instruments using unconventional playing techniques.

“Five broad sequences of choral one- and two-tone signals – the simplest consisting of a single sustained tone – define a space in which sound archetypes, between an internally moving mixture and rhythmic noise, meet: less ceremony from the test tube, than “Rehearsal” of magical props, where order as a cold arrangement leaves everything open, allowing a look behind the scenes, i.e. into the physicality of the sound objects themselves, means observing listening, and where the linguistic ability of the expressive elements called up recognizes their speechlessness: the first step, again and again, in the search for forms of communication without illusions.”

(Helmut Lachenmann, 1992)

Scored for: 4(picc).4.3.B-clar.3.dble bsn – 8.4.4.1. – timp.perc(4) – hp – pno – str: 12.12.10.8.8.