harmonicke zaklady ctvrttonove soustavy

Alois Haba was an early microtonalist and a proponent of various
fractional divisions of the octave . Few articles would serve as a
better introduction to Haba than this one:

http://tinyurl.com/6xpmo9

I thought the bit in about Haba's ascension to professorship at the
Prague Conservatory was very interesting... for ten years Haba taught
at the Conservatory on the basis of an annually renewed permission to
hold "courses in microtonal music"------->microtonal music was not a
separate subject in the curriculum, but was considered a department
of the composition class and could only be taken by students who had
already taken the required composition subjects. It wasn't until 1934
that Haba was appointed a professor of composition at the
Conservatory. Among his many students, several of whom went on to
produce and promote fractional interval music themselves, were
Ljubica Maric, Jeronimas Kacinskas, Viktor Ullmann, Slavko Osterc,
Constantin Iliev, Jiri Srnka, Necil Kazim Akses, Erwin Schulhoff,
Karel Reiner, Miroslav Ponc, Stepan Lucky, Rudolf Kubin, Jaroslav
Jezek, Vaclav Dobias, Karel Ancerl, and many, many others.

Haba composed an awful lot of quarter-tone music, including a full
quarter-tone opera, Matka, and six string quartets (nos. 2, 3, 4, 6,
12 and 14), six suites, eleven fantasies and a sonata for piano, and
two suites for guitar. Haba also composed pieces using other
fractional divisions of the tone, like string quartet no. 16 in fifth-
tones, and string quartets (nos. 5, 10 and 11) and suites for solo
violin and cello in sixth-tones. Unfortunately, almost all of Haba's
recordings are very difficult to find and usually quite expensive as
well.

Haba, like Carrillo in Mexico, was also influential enough to managed
to have special microtonal instruments made to his specifications.
For example, the piano manufacturer A. Forster built a quarter-tone
piano and a sixth-tone harmonium at his request. He also convinced
other manufactures to make him a quarter-tone clarinet and trumpet,
and later a quarter-tone guitar. Haba also wrote two important
microtonal textbooks, Neue Harmonielehre des diatonischen,
chromatischen, Viertel-, Drittel-, Sechstel-, und Zwolfteltonsystems
and Harmonicke zaklady ctvrttonove soustavy. FWIW, I have the latter
of these in Czech transferred to PDF at yousendit, and I'd be happy
to share it with anyone who'd be interested:

http://tinyurl.com/4cbtuj

It's also, of course, striking what a dark time in the development of
the modern psyche this whole period was set in, and the unimaginable
consequences it brought about. Just out of the very small and
particular group of composers I mentioned here as former students of
Haba, two were killed in the concentration camps; Viktor Ullmann and
Erwin Schulhoff. After the Nazi seizure of Czechoslavakia, Ullmann
was sent to Theresienstadt, where he somehow manager to compose a one-
act opera, Der Kaiser von Atlantis, which was based on a tyrannical
monarch who outlaws death only to later beg for its return to relieve
humanity from the horrors of living. He later died, most likely at
Auschwitz. Schulhoff was a member of the communist party, and after
the Nazi occupation in 1939 was granted Soviet citizenship to protect
him from arrest. But after the 1941 Nazi invasion of Russia, he was
arrested and later died in the concentration camps. Others, like
Stephan Lucky (detained at Terezin, Dachau, and Auschwitz) and Karel
Reiner (detained at Bucharest, Auschwitz and Buchenwald) miraculously
survived and even composed again after liberation. I can't even begin
to imagine.

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Necil Kazim Akses is also knows as one of the "Turkish Five". I personally do not like his music very much though.

Oz.

On Sep 24, 2008, at 2:36 AM, daniel_anthony_stearns wrote:

> Alois Haba was an early microtonalist and a proponent of various
> fractional divisions of the octave . Few articles would serve as a
> better introduction to Haba than this one:
>
> http://tinyurl.com/6xpmo9
>
> I thought the bit in about Haba's ascension to professorship at the
> Prague Conservatory was very interesting... for ten years Haba taught
> at the Conservatory on the basis of an annually renewed permission to
> hold "courses in microtonal music"------->microtonal music was not a
> separate subject in the curriculum, but was considered a department
> of the composition class and could only be taken by students who had
> already taken the required composition subjects. It wasn't until 1934
> that Haba was appointed a professor of composition at the
> Conservatory. Among his many students, several of whom went on to
> produce and promote fractional interval music themselves, were
> Ljubica Maric, Jeronimas Kacinskas, Viktor Ullmann, Slavko Osterc,
> Constantin Iliev, Jiri Srnka, Necil Kazim Akses, Erwin Schulhoff,
> Karel Reiner, Miroslav Ponc, Stepan Lucky, Rudolf Kubin, Jaroslav
> Jezek, Vaclav Dobias, Karel Ancerl, and many, many others.
>
> Haba composed an awful lot of quarter-tone music, including a full
> quarter-tone opera, Matka, and six string quartets (nos. 2, 3, 4, 6,
> 12 and 14), six suites, eleven fantasies and a sonata for piano, and
> two suites for guitar. Haba also composed pieces using other
> fractional divisions of the tone, like string quartet no. 16 in fifth-
> tones, and string quartets (nos. 5, 10 and 11) and suites for solo
> violin and cello in sixth-tones. Unfortunately, almost all of Haba's
> recordings are very difficult to find and usually quite expensive as
> well.
>
> Haba, like Carrillo in Mexico, was also influential enough to managed
> to have special microtonal instruments made to his specifications.
> For example, the piano manufacturer A. Forster built a quarter-tone
> piano and a sixth-tone harmonium at his request. He also convinced
> other manufactures to make him a quarter-tone clarinet and trumpet,
> and later a quarter-tone guitar. Haba also wrote two important
> microtonal textbooks, Neue Harmonielehre des diatonischen,
> chromatischen, Viertel-, Drittel-, Sechstel-, und Zwolfteltonsystems
> and Harmonicke zaklady ctvrttonove soustavy. FWIW, I have the latter
> of these in Czech transferred to PDF at yousendit, and I'd be happy
> to share it with anyone who'd be interested:
>
> http://tinyurl.com/4cbtuj
>
> It's also, of course, striking what a dark time in the development of
> the modern psyche this whole period was set in, and the unimaginable
> consequences it brought about. Just out of the very small and
> particular group of composers I mentioned here as former students of
> Haba, two were killed in the concentration camps; Viktor Ullmann and
> Erwin Schulhoff. After the Nazi seizure of Czechoslavakia, Ullmann
> was sent to Theresienstadt, where he somehow manager to compose a one-
> act opera, Der Kaiser von Atlantis, which was based on a tyrannical
> monarch who outlaws death only to later beg for its return to relieve
> humanity from the horrors of living. He later died, most likely at
> Auschwitz. Schulhoff was a member of the communist party, and after
> the Nazi occupation in 1939 was granted Soviet citizenship to protect
> him from arrest. But after the 1941 Nazi invasion of Russia, he was
> arrested and later died in the concentration camps. Others, like
> Stephan Lucky (detained at Terezin, Dachau, and Auschwitz) and Karel
> Reiner (detained at Bucharest, Auschwitz and Buchenwald) miraculously
> survived and even composed again after liberation. I can't even begin
> to imagine.
>
> http://netnewmusic.ning.com/profile/danstearns
> http://zebox.com/daniel_anthony_stearns/
> http://zebox.com/danstearns_4/
> http://www.youtube.com/user/danstearns
> http://zebox.com/danstearns_5/
> http://zebox.com/avantgarde_jazzguitar/