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STAIRWAYS IN THE DARK: SOUND, SYNTAX AND THE SUBLIME IN HAAS'S IN VAIN

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 March 2019

Mark Hutchinson
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Abstract

The glowing critical response to Georg Friedrich Haas's in vain (2000) has focused particularly on the visceral effect created by Haas's use of ‘endless’ scales, richly saturated microtonal chords, and passages that take place in total darkness. Discussion of these features has often led reviewers and commentators to use forms of description and praise which evoke the old (but lately rejuvenated) aesthetic category of the sublime. This article explores these connections with sublime aesthetics in more detail as a way of clarifying both philosophical and interpretative perspectives on in vain. The idea of the sublime serves as a thread connecting aspects of spectral technique and aesthetics, the mathematical visions of M.C. Escher, and the charged socio-political context in which the work was written.

Type
RESEARCH ARTICLES
Information
Tempo , Volume 73 , Issue 288 , April 2019 , pp. 7 - 25
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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References

1 For a further discussion of Klangspaltung and other auditory effects in Haas's work, especially those inspired by Wyschnegradsky, see Hasegawa, Robert, ‘Clashing Harmonic Systems in Haas's Blumenstück and in vain’, Music Theory Spectrum, 37 no. 2 (2015), pp. 204–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Bernhard Günther, programme note to in vain, www.universaledition.com/composers-and-works/georg-friedrich-haas-278/works/in-vain-7566, accessed 22 April 2017.

3 Alex Ross, ‘Darkness Audible’, The New Yorker, 29 November 2010. www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/11/29/darkness-audible, accessed 9 July 2015.

4 Key texts in musicological scholarship on the sublime include Webster, James, ‘The Creation, Haydn's Late Vocal Music, and The Musical Sublime’, in Haydn and His World, ed. Sisman, Elaine (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), pp. 57–102Google Scholar; and Sisman, Elaine, Mozart: The ‘Jupiter’ Symphony (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Morley, Simon, ‘Introduction’, in The Sublime, ed. Morley, Simon (London: Whitechapel Gallery, 2010)Google Scholar, p. 12.

6 For another thought-provoking perspective on the tension between existing readings of this piece and Haas's own (sometimes contradictory) statements about musical meaning and politics, see Silva, Max, ‘Heard Utopia vs Utopian Hearing: Haas's in vain and Political Ambivalence in New Music’, Twentieth-Century Music, 15 no. 1 (2018), pp. 75–102CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Morley, ‘Introduction’, p. 16.

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13 For a full description of Shepard scales, see Shepard, Roger N., ‘Circularity in Judgements of Relative Pitch’, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 36 no. 12 (1964), pp. 2346–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar. As in other works by Haas that feature a compositional projection of this illusion, its effect here relies not on the seamless crossfading of upper and lower partials, but rather on carefully staggered octave leaps in each part which allow the apparent descent to continue indefinitely. See Hasegawa, ‘Clashing Harmonic Systems’, p. 216.

14 Hasegawa, ‘Clashing Harmonic Systems’, pp. 218–21.

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23 Simon Cummings, ‘HMCF 2013: London Sinfonietta’ (review), http://5against4.com/2013/11/16/hcmf-2013-london-sinfonietta/, accessed 20 April 2017.

24 Xenia Pestova, ‘Georg Friedrich Haas’ in vain by the London Sinfonietta at Southbank’ (review), https://www.icareifyoulisten.com/2013/12/georg-friedrich-haas-in-vain-london-sinfonietta-southbank/, accessed 20 April 2017.

25 Farthofer, Georg Friedrich Haas, p. 46, my translation.

26 This is something that has been noted also by Max Silva, who reads it as an ‘ethical tactic’ for challenging ingrained habits of listening and awakening a more immersed, attentive focus on Haas's complex soundscapes; see Silva, ‘Heard Utopia’, pp. 82–3.

27 Kant, Critique, p. 143.

28 Kant, Critique, p. 145.

29 It is worth noting that Haas has changed his own stance on politically motivated work a number of times in his career; in 2008 he turned his back on the concept of composing for political purposes, suggesting that it was futile and detracted from the distinctive qualities of musical experiences. By 2013, however, he returned to this arena with another protest piece, I can't breathe for solo trumpet. For further discussion of the ambiguous ramifications of Haas's shifting ideological position, see Silva, ‘Heard Utopia’, pp. 75–8 and pp. 97–101.

30 Ross, ‘Darkness Audible’.

31 Ross, ‘Darkness Audible’.

32 Haas, Georg Friedrich, ‘Fünf Thesen zur Mikrotonalität’, Positionen, 48 (2001), pp. 42–44Google Scholar. For further discussion of the manifold nuances of microtonal tuning within in vain specifically, see Silva, ‘Heard Utopia’, pp. 86–98.

33 Haas, ‘Fünf Thesen’, p. 42, my translation.

34 Ross, ‘Darkness Audible’.

35 Morley, ‘Staring into the Contemporary Abyss’, Tate Etc., 20 (2010), www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/articles/staring-contemporary-abyss, accessed 2 August 2018.

36 Morley, ‘Staring into the Contemporary Abyss’.

37 Longinus (attr.), ‘On the Sublime’, trans. T.S. Dorsch, in Classical Literary Criticism, ed. T.S. Dorsch (London: Penguin, 1965), p. 100.

38 Mike Kelley, interview with Thomas McEvilley (1992), in The Sublime, ed. Morley, Simon (London: Whitechapel Gallery, 2010), pp. 201–4Google Scholar.

39 See Morley, ‘Introduction’, p. 19.