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Graz Opera's Season Opening Concert Features Georg Friedrich Haas's Concerto grosso No. 1

Sep. 01, 2021

Graz Opera's season opening concert on September 25 features a performance of Georg Friedrich Haas's Concerto grosso No. 1 at the Opernhaus Hauptbühne, accompanied on the program by Strauss's Eine Alpensinfonie. Written for four alphorns and orchestra, Haas's Concerto grosso No. 1 challenges the 'established' laws of sound. Haas not only has the alphorns provide the pure overtone chords but also deliberately introduces pulsing beats that are played by the orchestra. The fascinating sound world of this work owes much to this concerto grosso interplay.

The composer notes: “Alphorns are not seen as symbols of folklorist culture, but rather as the source of another dimension of intonation (overtone chords), used to create contrast and to expand the traditional twelve-tone tuning of the symphony orchestra.”


(Concerto grosso No. 1/Georg Friedrich Haas/HORNROH modern alphorn quartet/
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra/Susanna Mälkki, conductor)

In addition, on September 1, Open Spaces II was performed at the Musikfestival Bern, celebrating its Swiss premiere. In the work, part of the festival's conceptual concert program ‘Open the Spaces’, Haas condenses the sounds of 12 microtonally retuned string instruments and simultaneously creates an open sound space.

To learn more about Georg Friedrich Haas, visit: universaledition.com.

Georg Friedrich Haas
Concerto grosso, No. 1 (2014)
for four alphorns and orchestra
3.3.3.3-6.3.3.1-timp-3perc-strings(12.10.8.6.6)
30'

Open Spaces II (2007)
in memory of James Tenney
version for four spatially distributed groups of instruments
2perc.6vn.2va.2vc.2cb
16'

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