george crumb · stefano gervasoni · georg friedrich haas

Chicago based pianist Mabel Kwan (Ensemble Dal Niente) releases the premiere recording of Georg Friedrich Haas' Trois Hommages, a beguiling work for two pianos tuned a quarter tone apart and played by one performer. Dedicated to Steve Reich, Gyorgy Ligeti, and Josef Matthias Hauer, Haas' expansive work deconstructs stylistic elements of prominent modern compositional aesthetics as well as the central association the piano has with equal temperament and its impact on music history.

Georg Friedrich Haas writes music that is strongly hypnotic. A simple title like … und … (… and …) forces together the ensemble and electronics, the microtones and the tempered system, this in a unique way. The result – at the premiere in September 2008 – are 27 minutes of intensely exciting playing, with the Experimentalstudio of the SWR and the Collegium Novum Zürich under Enno Poppe. These sounds impinge on the ear, and find their corollary in a vision no less intense: Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich … (Who heard me when I cried…), with the percussion soloist Martin Lorenz. Other completely different but also fervent notions held by the composer Haas are more redolent of a piece for merely solo voices, which … aus freier Lust … verbunden … (… arising out of free volition … shall join …), and are able to – here for example in the chamber music quartet-intermezzo.