Haas - Sextett for flute, clarinet, percussion, piano, violin and violoncello

The Sextet begins with intervals set for two voices, each of which interval moves in slow glissandi about a quarter-tone (causing, for example, a minor third to become a major second in contrary motion).

Two types of musical design are derived from this original material:

1) Imaginary intervallic beats

The intervallic clashes or beats which could result among the higher partials of pitches in slow glissandi are calculated and then scored for instruments, whereby the fundamental frequencies are almost always omitted. (Haas applies a comparable procedure in his subsequent Descendiendo for orchestra).

2) Chords perceptible as tonal, merging in quarter-tone progressions

Here a connection to an episode in music history which has been forgotten is recreated, viz. the attempt made by Richard Heinrich Stein (1882-1942) in 1909 to develop a theory of strictly tonally related quarter-tone music. One of the Sextet’s essential elements consists in interrupting, dissecting, severing and inserting components which cite “bygones.” At the end, the percussive aspect predominates – the absence or loss of pitches.

The Sextet was written in 1992 for Clemens Gadenstätter and the Ensemble neue Musik Wien which he founded; its form was completely reworked in 1996.

Georg Friedrich Haas

Translation Copyright © 2012 by Grant Chorley