Stairways in the dark: Sound, syntax and the sublime in Haas's 'in vain'

TY - JOUR

T1 - Stairways in the dark

T2 - Sound, syntax and the sublime in Haas's 'in vain'

AU - Hutchinson, Mark Aled

PY - 2019/4

Y1 - 2019/4

N2 - 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.

AB - 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.

U2 - 10.1017/S0040298218000943

DO - 10.1017/S0040298218000943

M3 - Article

SN - 0040-2982

VL - 73

SP - 7

EP - 25

JO - Tempo

JF - Tempo

IS - 288

ER -