As we contemplate the new millennium, it is unlikely that Viennese composers
are going to create the same impact as they did at the start of the 19th
and 20th centuries. Yet during the past decade, there has been a resurgence
of activity amongst younger Austrian composers, based mainly in Vienna, which
contrasts strikingly with the populist output of some of their older colleagues
who were briefly dubbed 'the Third Viennese School'.
A distinctive aesthetic has begun to emerge, which is 'modernist' in essence,
but sufficiently flexible to allow several composers to express their creative
originality. Among them are Karlheinz Essl, Clemens Gadenstaetter, Olga Neuwirth,
Christian Offenbauer and Gerhard Winkler, together with two slightly older
figures.
The Swiss-born Beat Furrer can be regarded as the catalyst of these developments
insofar as, besides composing many significant scores, he founded Klangforum
Wien in 1985. The ensemble has since become the principal outlet for these
composers, while also developing an ever-expanding repertoire of new, and
not-so-new music; and it is surprising they have not visited Britain since
their success at the 1994 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. Furrer
remains at the forefront of contemporary Austrian music as composer and director
of Klangforum, but the compositions of Georg Friedrich Haas have recently
received considerable recognition, and this is the second disc devoted to
his work, following the recording of his chamber opera, Nacht, released last
year.
Georg Friedrich Haas was born in 1953. He studied piano and composition in
Graz, his principal teacher for the latter being Goesta Neuwirth. Later,
he undertook post-graduate composition studies with Friedrich Cerha, attended
the Darmstadt Summer Courses on several occasions, and also participated
in a course at IRCAM. He was one of the composers Klangforum introduced to
Huddersfield, and last November, Ensemble Reservoir included Einklang Freier
Wesen at the end of a programme devoted to composers of a radical persuasion.
Haas' early output provided only a glimpse of his potential, but then came
the revised version of Sextett, completed for Ensemble Recherche, and this
prompted a re-evaluation of his earlier scores.
The four items on the present disc all date from the past decade. Nacht-Schatten,
for chamber orchestra, written in 1991, is the earliest piece, and to some
extent, it represents the starting-point for the other items. On the one
hand, its essentially static character contains a hint of minimalism, recalling
that Haas wrote a brief homage to Steve Reich in the early 1980s. On the
other, the ensemble is typical of Ligeti, to whom Haas also dedicated a Homage,
written soon after its predecessor. Equally, the episodes involving a more
kaleidoscopic surface, generated mainly by the woodwind, reflect Haas' admiration
for the way Ligeti has responded to the limitations of minimalism, and he
has pursued a similar approach within his own terms.
Thus, Nacht-Schatten offers an appropriate starting-point when considering
Haas' recent development, while Einklang Freier Wesen, for ten instruments,
written three years later, can be regarded as its logical successor. The
smaller group ensures a lighter texture, but Haas still tends to favour the
lower registers. Ultimately, the work is still primarily static, despite
a good deal of percussive activity, which is not restricted to the percussion
instruments. Yet the main interest stems from the suggestion of micro-intervals,
particularly towards the end of the work. Haas had been attracted to the
microtonal music of Alois Haba at an early stage of his career, subsequently
extending his enthusiasm to the music of Ivan Wyschnegradsky and Giacinto
Scelsi. Hence, in the last five years, he has significantly developed the
microtonal aspect of Einklang Freier Wesen, not least in his first String
Quartet. However, the quartet also draws on the rather different style which
Haas began to cultivate in '...', for accordion, viola and chamber orchestra,
completed at the same time as Einklang Freier Wesen.
'...' is equally important as Haas' first concertante score. As such, it
prefigures the recent Violin Concerto - which retains some of the characteristics
of Nacht-Schatten and Einklang Freier Wesen - as well as Fremde Welten, for
piano and 20 strings, where the ethereal tendencies of '...' are exploited
in conjunction with the microtonality of the Quartet.
The First String Quartet is the most ambitious, and the most demanding work
on the disc. It was completed in 1997, shortly after the chamber opera, Nacht,
and its continuing influence can be discerned in at least three subsequent
works. It extends
Haas' initial preoccupation with minimalism into a new domain. This is where
the example of the earlier microtonalists is most pronounced, but perhaps
the compositions of Lamonte Young should also be cited. The Quartet's
contemplative aspect tends to be uppermost for much of its duration, but
in the later stages, there is a passage whose expressive intensity is sufficient
to be regarded as dramatic, which leads to an episode where the four instruments
combine to generate a surreal allusion to bell-ringing, before fading into
silence. There is a roughly equivalent passage towards the close of the Violin
Concerto, of 1998, but the Quartet's influence is more apparent in Fremde
Welten - 1998 - not only on the writing for the strings, with its emphasis
on microintervals, but also on the contemplative and minimalist character
of the soloist's material. Minimalist tendencies recur in other recent
compositions, notably Monodie, for ensemble, but they are invariably combined
with other features.
In short, familiarity with the works on this disc should guarantee a fuller
appreciation of Haas' subsequent achievements, yet the accompanying leaflet
does not include an English text. Presumably, the record producers did not
envisage sales beyond Central Europe, even though Haas' compositions deserve
wider circulation. However, it may be worth contacting Universal Edition
in London, or in Vienna, or the Austrian Music Information Centre, Vienna.
Austrian Radio should be encouraged to distribute the disc more widely.
Georg
Schulz - accordion; Dmitrios Polisolidis - viola; Klangforum Wien, conducted
by Sylvain Cambreling.
