Georg Friedrich Haas is this year’s composer in residence at the Greatest Hits Festival (14 to 17 November) in Hamburg, a festival for contemporary music created by Laeiszhalle Elbphilharmonie Hamburg and Kampnagel. On the programme will be Haas’ third string quartet, “In iij. Noct.”, and limited approximations for 6 micro-tonally tuned pianos and orchestra, as well as works by Kagel, Reich, Cage, Zender and many more.

Find the full programme here.

View the study score of limited approximations.

Georg Friedrich Haas on limited approximations:

The twelfth-tone interval is so small that it is no longer heard as an interval, but rather as the shading of a single note. A single tone played by a romantic orchestra has a wider frequency.  The aural effect of a scale in twelfth-tone intervals is thus similar to a glissando. The effect of a cluster of twelfth-tones depends on the register: higher up, it is sharp, abrasive, biting, lower down it is soft, melting, rich. Of course it is also possible to build raw, dissonant chords with twelve-tone intervals – much more differentiated (also in the degree of acuteness) than with the traditional 12 tones per octave. But it is also possible to build much more “consonant” chords then in the traditional twelve-note scale: a close approximation of the twelve-tone scale can be produced in the overtone scale, accurate up to a twelfth of a tone.

Read the full text.

Georg Friedrich Haas: “In iij. Noct.” | String Quartet no. 3
for string quartet | 50'
15.11.2013, Kampnagel, Hamburg; Jack Quartett

Georg Friedrich Haas: limited approximations
for 6 micro-tonally tuned pianos and orchestra | 30'
4 1 4 1 - 6 1 4 0 - pno(6), vln.I(10), vln.II(10), vla(6), vc(6), cb(8)
17.11.2013, Kampnagel, Hamburg; Klaus Steffes-Holländer, Pi-Hsien Chen, Florian Hoelscher, Julia Vogelsänger, Akiko Okabe, Christoph Grund, pno; SWR-SO Baden-Baden und Freiburg, cond. François-Xavier Roth