Wien Modern 36. Georg Friedrich Haas: 11.000 Saiten

11.000 strings

It begins delicately, ethereally, almost a bit like baroque music blown in from afar, then transforms within seconds into a futuristic space opera; the sound seems to suddenly gain mass in space out of nowhere, becomes darkly threatening, then light as a feather again. Hypnotic, unreal sound surfaces begin to spin, deforming into the definitely three-dimensional, spatial. Already in the first minutes of his new work Georg Friedrich Haas leaves no doubt: 11.000 Saiten takes the listener on a kind of space flight, across a sound space that has never existed before.

50 (in words: fifty) pianos distributed around the room at hundredth-note intervals and chamber orchestra - from this completely utopian basic set-up Haas gains astonishing degrees of intensity that open up new dimensions even by his standards. The sheer, space-filling mass that the title implies - to make the 11,000 strings sound requires some 12 tons of cast steel frames, copper-steel strings, brass, spruce, linden, maple, felt, and much more, not to mention the many days it takes to transport, set up, and tune them - Haas puts this mass at the service of the most ephemeral, light, and nimble of arts. Well, a reverberation of 50 pianos with the pedal depressed does take its 20 seconds - but how quickly does a mood change in music, how quickly do a few delicate piano paw nudges become a virtual glass harmonica, a soaring flock of tropical birds, a mighty propeller plane spiraling higher and higher, a sunrise, a Formula 1 race, a roaring piano monster, a departing thunderstorm ... With his 12-ton meta-piano, Haas builds a kind of universal instrument that overtakes any electronic sound synthesis with its sheer, analog, intangible physicality. A trip in very entertaining feature length, a physical experience for the audience in the hall, a surprise coup of the composer Georg Friedrich Haas.