The conventional piezospectroscopic effect is extended to picosecond time scales by using ultrashort strain pulses injected into semiconductor heterostructures. The strain pulses with durations of approximately 10 ps are generated in a metal transducer film by intense femtosecond laser pulses. They propagate coherently in the GaAs/(Al,Ga)As heterostructure over a distance of 100 microm and shift the band gaps by several meV as detected optically for quantum well exciton resonances by pump-probe techniques and time-resolved photoluminescence.