Open Spaces has connections with the music of the American composer James Tenney, who died in 2006, and whose musical thinking and radical compositions have exercised a strong influence on my work. In Open Spaces I make use of Tenney’s technique of freely ‘wandering’ between the notes of an overtone chord, as well as the slow glissando in a gentle tremolo from his solo violin piece KOAN. (Georg Friedrich Haas)
On 11 August Peter Rundel conducts the œnm at the sold-out performance of Georg Friedrich Haas’ Open Spaces at this year’s Salzburg Festival. On percussion: virtuoso Martin Grubinger.
The US première of Georg Friedrich Haas’ concerto grosso No. 1 for four alphorns and orchestra (hornroh modern alphorn quartet; Los Angeles Philharmonic, cond. Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla) takes place on 1 April at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.
The Italian magazine Classic Voice recently announced Georg Friedrich Haas’ work in vain to be the “most beautiful score of the new millennium” – the result of a survey in which 130 experts of European contemporary music participated.
You can watch a five-minute introduction to in vain – recorded in 2016 in Valencia – here:
Congratulations! Georg Friedrich Haas’ in vain wins the new music hit parade of Classic Voice – find out more in this [Italian] article on Corriere Della Sera.
Es hätte kaum ein besseres Sujet gefunden werden können als das kindliche Dramolett um das Finden der Identität, um Wien Modern in diesem Jahr einzuleiten – aber auch um jene Kinder zu begrüßen, die noch nicht so lang in Österreich sind. (Daniel Ender, Der Standard, 31 October 2016)
Wien Modern has opened with the scenic première of Georg Friedrich Haas’ das kleine ICH BIN ICH.
The orchestra takes over the melody: the whole orchestra begins to sing. (Georg Friedrich Haas on dark dreams)
Georg Friedrich Haas’ dark dreams for orchestra will receive its Estonian première today, 21 October, at the AFEKT International Modern Music Festival in Tallinn. Michael Wendeberg conducts the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra.
We have prepared the full score for you:
Bologna Modern runs from 14 to 23 October at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna. Universal Edition is strongly represented, with performances by Georg Friedrich Haas, Wolfgang Rihm, Friedrich Cerha and Alban Berg.
The Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart are performing Georg Friedrich Haas’ 3 Liebesgedichte on their current tour of Asia.
The composer about the works, which were composed for the six musicians of the Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart:
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.
“Auf der bunten Blumenwiese geht ein buntes Tier spazieren ...”
Georg Friedrich Haas’ das kleine ICH BIN ICH – after Mira Lobes children’s classic of the same title – will be premièred today at Mozarteum International Summer Academy in Salzburg. Johannes Kalitzke conducts the Klangforum Wien (speaker: Sabine Muhar).
The latest issue of the MusikSalon is out now!
In an in-depth interview, Georg Friedrich Haas talks about his opera Morgen und Abend. Kasper Holten, Director of Opera at the Royal Opera House, and Michael Boder, who conducted the world première, are also interviewed.
Furthermore, two important works from the UE catalogue will be presented: the violin concertos by Georg Friedrich Haas and Kurt Weill, for which we interviewed the soloists Ernst Kovacic and Benjamin Schmid.
You can watch the trailer here:
“I had worried that I’d find the darkness oppressive, and that the loss of sight might induce claustrophobia – or, worse, the sense of being taken for a ride by a composer obsessed with control. Instead I found the darkness that settled over the sold-out auditorium to be warm, convivial and conducive to a state of heightened listening in which Mr. Haas’s fragile, searching music took on vivid, sensuous plasticity.”
Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim has recently reviewed the American Immersion concert series with the Talea Ensemble.
Beautiful – Georg Friedrich Haas’ Morgen und Abend and the “Total Immersion: Boulez at 90” programme made it into Fiona Maddocks’ best classical music of 2015 article:
BBC Radio 3 broadcasts a recording of Georg Friedrich Haas’ highly acclaimed opera Morgen und Abend tomorrow at 19:30 CET/CEST. Listen live.
Want to peruse the score while listening to the opera? We’ve uploaded the full conductor’s score for you here:
Not much happens, but Georg Friedrich Haas’s new opera is a mesmerising evocation of the great hereafter. (Fiona Maddocks, The Guardian, 22 November 2015)
Although little or no change in dynamic happens throughout, the soundscapes are spectacularly eerie, casting quite a mood in the vast hall and filling the space with atmospheric emotion. It is incredible to see such a huge orchestra employed in such a way, each instrument being used in a more creative and unusual way to create these unfamiliar sounds. (Lydia Lakemoore, A Younger Theatre, 15 November 2015)
Brandauer has called the opera a Gesamtkunstwerk, a fitting description for its unified artistic vision, even if comparisons with Wagner (or any other opera composer) are beside the point. (Gavin Dixon, bachtrack, 14 November 2015)
But if you are susceptible to Haas's musical language it will creep under your skin as it did mine. (Mark Valencia, WhatsOnStage, 14 November 2015)
Read more reviews and view the full score
Interested in the audience’s reactions? Find them here: Your Reaction: Morgen und Abend.
Sarah Wegener, Christoph Pohl, Helena Rasker, Georg Friedrich Haas and Will Hartmann.
Composer Georg Friedrich Haas surrounded by happy cast after yesterday’s successful general rehearsal of his opera Morgen und Abend at the Royal Opera House in London. Fingers crossed for the world première on Friday.