Search - Josef Matthias Hauer, Ensemble Avantgarde :: Josef Matthias Hauer: Zwölftonspiele

An Incredible Disc!

06/22/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This new disc on one of the best classical "micro-brewed" labels, MDG, is absolutely incredible. It features the little 12-tone pieces of Josef Matthias Hauer, a Viennese contemporary of Schoenberg. Hauer's 12-tone pieces are quite different from those of Schoenberg and his New Viennese School fellows, Berg and Webern. For Schoenberg the 12-tone technique was merely a means to an end of personal (and artistic) expression. For Hauer, it was an end in itself. Hauer's little pieces (the longest is only 5min long!) are almost scientific in ethos. His method of composing with 12 tones was much more idiosyncatic than Schoenberg's. These little essays in pure music are like perfect crystals. The tempi and dynamics are uniform; the selected tones less angular than Schoenberg's Expressionistic melodies. After listening to this disc, I felt alert, calm, and clear-headed. I felt as though the electro-chemical circuitry in my brain was set straight to run on its proper lines of neural communication by this cerebral music.



If you appreciate fin de siècle aesthetic culture, do yourself a favor and get this disc. Although all the pieces on this disc were written after WWII, Hauer's ethos was established prior to WWI and changed little (if any) till his death in 1959. He wrote 1000 of these "zwölftonspiele" (12-tone exercises), and his works have not been catalogued to this day. An incredible find."