Haas - 3 Liebesgedichte for 6 voices (S, MS, A, T, Bar, B)

For the most part, Stramm does away with syntax in his poems; he orders words to words into an expressive series of substantives, adjectives and pronouns, predominantly conditioned sonically and rhythmically, whereby neologisms may result. He may shape grammatically complete sentences but, if so, they convey nothing contextual; they formulate metaphors and images, linked together in a freely associative manner. The poems are comparable with the early atonal works of Anton Webern in that they have elements of a quasi-modernity, lasting through today, although they were written at about the same time as Webern was composing his pieces.

Jörg Drews has pointed out “ … that possibilities of a very quiet, suggestively intimated tenderness lies in Stramm’s poems – the love-poems especially – precisely due to their brusque laconism, their astonishing neologisms and breathless truncations … “.

These three Liebesgedichte (Blüte [Blossom], Heimlichkeit [Covertness], Spiel [Play]) were composed for the six musicians of the Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart and are dedicated to my wife Yasuko.

Georg Friedrich Haas

Translation: Grant Chorley