Bernhard Lang

Bernhard Lang (born 24 February 1957 Linz, Austria) is an Austrian composer, improviser and programmer of musical patches and applications.

His work can be described as contemporary classical, with roots, however, in various genres such as 20th-century avant-garde, European classical music, jazz, free jazz, rock, punk, techno, EDM, electronica, electronic music, and computer-generated music.

His works range from solo pieces and chamber music to large ensemble pieces and works for orchestra and musical theatre.

Besides music for concert halls, Lang designs sound and music for theatre, dance, film and sound installations.

In 1975, he moved to Graz to study philosophy and German philology, jazz (Dieter Glawischnig), piano (Harald Neuwirth), counterpoint (Hermann Markus Pressl), and harmony and composition (Andrzej Dobrowolski).

From 1977 to 1981, he worked with various jazz ensembles as composer, arranger and pianist.

At the Institute of Electronic Music (IEM) in Graz, he began his work in the area of electronic music and computer-based composition systems.

From 1984 to 1989, he worked at the Conservatory in Graz while continuing his studies with Georg Friedrich Haas and Gösta Neuwirth.

In 1987, he co-founded the composer's club "die andere saite" (roughly "the alternate string", a German-language pun referring also to "the other side").

Together with Winfried Ritsch, he developed the software CADMUS in C++.

In 1989, he began teaching at the Graz University of the Arts, where he was appointed Professor of Composition in 2003, a post which he held until his retirement in 2022.

Bernhard Lang came to prominence with his work cycle Differenz/Wiederholung (DW, Difference/Repetition), composed since 1998, in which he illuminated and examined the themes of reproductive and DJ cultures based on the philosophic work of Gilles Deleuze.

The Differenz/Wiederholung (DW, Difference/Repetition) series began in 1998 and currently comprises about 40 works.

Lang uses DJ techniques such as loops and scratching in his music, and employs repetition in a variety of ways.

Among these are sections that are repeated in the same form or motifs whose shape changes slightly with each repetition; automatic repetitions result from this procedure, as do continuous developments or abrupt changes.

Just as important as the repetition is the difference; the question arises whether one is now hearing the same thing or whether something has changed after all.

The focus is thus not only on the actual performance, but also about the individual listener's perception.

Music theatre is a special passion of Bernhard Lang.

There are currently about 20 works in this genre, among them:

Since 2000, Lang has given numerous lectures in Europe and abroad, including at the Darmstadt Summer Course, Ostrava Days, Impuls Graz, Berlin's University of the Arts, Vienna's University of Music and Performing Arts and the Vienna Conservatory, as well as holding guest lectureships in, among other cities, Munich, Zurich, Basle, Oslo, Madrid, London, New York and Paris.

Lang has collabarated with dancers and choreographers such as Xavier Le Roy, Willi Dorner, Christine Gaigg and Silke Grabinger.

Sociocultural and socially critical questions, as in Das Theater der Wiederholungen/The Theatre of Repetitions (2003) are examined as closely as intrinsically musical and music-cultural problems ("I hate Mozart", 2006).

Another focus is the "recycling" of historic music, which Lang creates using self-programmed patches, applying filter and mutation processes (as in the "Monadologie" cycle).

In the works of Lang's Game series, the performers are given a set of predetermined rules by which they must guide their decisions and interactions.

In other words, these works are based on the principles of controlled improvisation or determined indeterminacy.

In addition to classical European instruments, Lang also makes use of their amplified electrical counterparts (e.g. electric viola) as well as mutually microtonally de-tuned ensemble groups.

Analogue and digital synthesizers, keyboards, rock music instruments (electric guitar and bass, drumset), turntables (the trailblazing instrument of the hiphop culture), rappers, Arabian singers, the spoken voice and live-electronics (mainly the self-programmed "Loop Generator") are similarly used.

Bernhard Lang studied at the Brucknerkonservatorium in Linz (Austria).

Das Theater der Wiederholungen, based on the writings of the Marquis de Sade and William S. Burroughs and choreographed by Xavier Le Roy, was premiered at the festival Steirischer Herbst, Graz in 2003.

esc#5 Impostors, for five voices and amplified ensemble, is one of seven short operas based on a libretto by Jonathan Safran Foer.

In 2004–2005 Lang had a scholarship at the International Artists' House Villa Concordia in Bamberg, and in 2006 he was the featured composer at Wien Modern.

The premiere took place in 2005 at the Oper unter den Linden, Berlin.

I Hate Mozart, with a libretto by Michael Sturminger, was composed for the Viennese Mozart Year festival in 2006.

This was followed by a working residency in 2007 at the Künstleratelier Thomas Bernhard Archiv in Gmunden.

In 2007-2008 he was composer-in-residence at the Theater Basel, in 2008-2009 Capell-Compositeur of the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden and in 2013–14 guest lecturer for composition in Lucerne.

Bernhard Lang is an honorary member of Klangforum Wien and has been a member of the Akademie der Künste Berlin since 2014.

Since 2016, Bernhard Lang's entire catalogue of works are published by Ricordi Berlin.

Gilles Deleuze's book Difference and Repetition marks a turning point in Lang's compositional language.

According to an evaluation initiated in 2017 by the Italian music magazine "Classic Voice" by more than 100 experts in contemporary music, Lang is one of the ten most important living composers.

Lang's works have been released on numerous CDs and LPs, most notably on Kairos and GODrec.