Bernhard Lang

Loops for string quartet (2024)

"Loops for string quartet" is actually my fourth string quartet, commissioned by Francesco Dillon, with whom I have been collaborating since many years. The piece was created between the GAME series and the Loop series. It uses the variable mobile structures from the first, and the exclusive focus on loops from the second.

The GAME series was developed from the SCAN-experiments with Klangforum Wien, which tried to combine free improvisation with open structures of New Music. It recurs both on Roman Haubenstock-Ramatis concept of the mobile, and on Christian Wolffes idea of aleatoric, open composition. Game structures here are based on single parts only, not on a coherent macro-score, implying indeterminacy in a high degree.

The meditations and researches on loops owe to Tilmann Baumgärtels book "Schleifen" and to Raphael Montañez Ortiz' destructivist video loops.

"Loops for string quartet" also implies a reflection on the string quartet as a genre, referencing Beethoven op 132, reoccurring through the whole piece.

It is dedicated to Philip Jeck, master of turntables, with whom I had the honor to collaborate and perform, including also Francesco Dillon amongst others. I consider Jeck a major influence on my work since the nineties.

Bernhard Lang Vienna 10 March 2026