thoughts on Haba's tooth quartet

Thanks much, Joe, for that very revealing MIDI file. I confess to a gross
unfamiliarity with Haba's music, but considering his place in time, I'm not
surprised by what I hear.
"Don't remember whose post it was that mentioned the various resolutions in
the various parts, but it illuminated my ambivalence toward this music.
I certainly found it evocative. But to my ears he's clearly a
Zemlinsky-style late romantic and in that idiom the relationships between
tonalities and melodic motions are already so complex and time-dependent,
that the addition of 12 more tones to the mix makes these relationships even
more fluid. So, the first thing I notice is that a resolution can have one
of two degrees of consonance.
What I'd like to hear is more quarter-tone music in an idiom with a much
simpler hierarchy of tonality. Is there, for example, any serial
compositions using a 24-tone row? Or, is there a Verese-type person using
31-tet?
I have a tape of Vyshnegrodsky's "Zarathustra" (or is there an "also Sprach"
in the title) for four pianos, a pair at standard pitch and a pair a
quarter-tone flat. His style features more clusters and other textures that
make the tuning seem a more integral feature. To me, that piece simply has
no 12-tet equivalent.
I've been please with many of the pieces I've downloaded from various
listers' sites. Most of these pieces start with a tonal language with a
definite hierarchy, but one not so complex as to crowd out the effects of
microtonal relationships. (Well, okay, I freely admit that when music of the
late Romantic era waxes contrapuntal, I get claustrophobic.)
Jay

> [Jay Williams, TD 397.21]
>
> Thanks much, Joe, for that very revealing MIDI file.

You're quite welcome. I've come to realize that getting
Haba's work before the public is important.

> I confess to a gross unfamiliarity with Haba's music,

Well, that was the case for me too, until just a couple of
weeks ago. I decided to sequence Haba's work because he's
often referred to as an important microtonalist, but very
little of his work is available in any format (recording
or score). Based on what I hear in my MIDI files, I'm
beginning to think that a major microtonal composer has
been sadly neglected lately.

> but considering his place in time, I'm not surprised by what
> I hear.

Interesting that you should say that, because I had made
MIDI files of the little snippets of Haba's _2nd Quartet_
I'd seen used as musical examples of microtonality in books
and was definitely not impressed. When I finally got
a look at the whole score, and had a large enough musical
statement to work with so that it made some sense, my sequence
of *that* still didn't impress me, at first. It was only
after really examining the melodic pitch- and phrase-structure,
and shaping the tempos accordingly, that it finally started
sounding like an interesting piece. And I *was* surprised
by what I heard, because...

> Don't remember whose post it was that mentioned the
> various resolutions in the various parts, but it illuminated
> my ambivalence toward this music. I certainly found it
> evocative. But to my ears he's clearly a Zemlinsky-style
> late romantic and in that idiom the relationships between
> tonalities and melodic motions are already so complex and
> time-dependent, that the addition of 12 more tones to the
> mix makes these relationships even more fluid. So, the first
> thing I notice is that a resolution can have one of two degrees
> of consonance.

I too hear the 'late-romanticism' in Haba's style, and I
was *not* expecting that! Altho, as I have said, it sounds
to me like Haba clearly learned a lot from Schoenberg, and
Haba's quartet sounds to me more like a microtonal version
of Schoenberg's early chamber music than anything else.
Of course, Zemlinsky was a huge influence on Schoenberg's
early work.

Another thing worth examining is the fact that Zemlinsky was
working as a conductor in Prague during Haba's earliest
years there. The available English biographical sources
don't say that they ever met or corresponded, but I wouldn't
rule it out until I've consulted the Czech bios of Haba.

> What I'd like to hear is more quarter-tone music in an idiom
> with a much simpler hierarchy of tonality. Is there, for
> example, any serial compositions using a 24-tone row? Or,
> is there a Verese-type person using 31-tet?

Henri Pousseur wrote some microtonal compositions: I know
of one in 19-ET, and most likely they're serial. I discussed
some of this on the List earlier this year - check the
Archives.

And whenever the words 'microtonal' and 'serial' come
together, I always bring up Ben Johnston's outstanding
_6th Quartet_. You'll probably find stuff I've written
about this in the Tuning List Archives too. An excellent
analysis of the piece is Steven Elster, 'A Harmonic and
Serial Analysis of Ben Johnston's String Quartet No. 6',
in _Perspectives of New Music_, v 29 # 2 [summer 1991],
p 138-165. There was a recording available on LP, which
may still be found in libraries.

Note that Johnston does *not* use quarter-tones, etc.,
but composes in JI as did Partch, using a notation of
his own invention which precisely stipulates the ratios
he wants. I consider it a tremendous intellectual feat
that he was able to combine typical JI harmonic movement
with serial procedure, in a piece that also *sounds*
terrific.

You might also be interested in my _24-Equal Tune_ if you've
never heard it. The MIDI file and program notes are at:
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/24-eq/24-eq.htm

I'm not sure what a harmonic analysis of this tune would
make of it - I simply tuned my keyboard in 24-ET and put
the piece together out of what I heard, without really
thinking 'this quarter-tone implies that ratio', etc.
It is most definitely tonal, and probably quite simply
harmonically, but I haven't really probed into it.

It is what its title calls it: a tune, and no more.
So don't expect a substantial piece like Haba's.
(my MIDI of Haba's quartet is just a fragment right now)

> I have a tape of Vyshnegrodsky's "Zarathustra" (or is there
> an "also Sprach" in the title)

Yes indeed. The title is _Ainsi Parlait Zarathoustra_,
which is French for _Also Sprach Zarathustra_.

Vyschnegradsky (spelled Wyschnegradsky on the score) apparently
also wrote a symphonic poem after Nietzsche's book, just like
Strauss.

> for four pianos, a pair at standard pitch and a pair a
> quarter-tone flat.

Vyschnegradsky calls it a 'symphony in the quarter-tone
system for orchestra of four pianos'.

The pianos are divided into 2 groups, each one comprised
of one piano tuned regularly, and one tuned a quarter-tone
*higher*, not lower. (Not that it really makes a difference
- he could have tuned them that way and notated it differently,
with virtually the same result, except for slight differences
in timbre and note-range.)

The score to this piece is yet another treasure that I've
discovered lying in obscurity at the Van Pelt Library at
University of Pennsylvania. I hope to make a MIDI file
of this too.

> His style features more clusters and other textures that
> make the tuning seem a more integral feature. To me, that
> piece simply has no 12-tet equivalent.

Well, coming after your comments about Haba's quartet,
this statement makes it sound like you mean to imply
that Haba's music *does* have a 12-tET equivalent, and
I'm not so sure about that...

Unfortunately, the PhD dissertation about Haba's _Neue
Harmonielehre_, by Suzette Mary Battan, has a 'part 2'
which is a complete English translation of Haba's book,
but which is not included on the microfilm which has
part 1. So I was able to read Battan's analysis of
Haba's theories, but not a translation of the theories
themselves. The book itself is available (in German),
and I'll have to consult that to learn more.

From what I've learned of Haba's theories and compositions
so far, I'd say that he was generally *not* thinking of
the rational implications of his quarter-tone music.
He seems to be more interested in setting up various
types of quarter-tone scales and using the pitches both
melodically and harmonically. A lot of his theoretical
ideas are very closely related to Schoenberg's (as
presented in *his* _Harmonielehre_ of 1911).

-monz

Joseph L. Monzo Philadelphia monz@juno.com
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/homepage.html
|"...I had broken thru the lattice barrier..."|
| - Erv Wilson |
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