Metamorphose (1976)for guitar solo
Duration: 6' 00"
Hug & Co. Musikverlage
Limmatquai 28-30
CH-8001 Zürich
Schwarz Weiss (1979)for piano solo
Duration: 10' 00"
Hug & Co. Musikverlage
Limmatquai 28-30
CH-8001 Zürich
Gleichgewichte (1979-1981)
for two violins, two violas, two clarinets, trombone, two actors, picture, object
Duration: 40' 00"
Manuscript
Drei Klangbilder (1981)for piano, electronic tape and scenery
Duration: 20' 00"
SME/EMS
Endless Music No 1 (1982)
Sound exhibition
for eight loud speakers
Duration: 6h 00" (var.)
Manuscript
Gott oder ein Fetzen (1982)
Radio collage
With texts by E.M. Cioran.
Duration: 41' 00"
Manuscript
Vibration (1983)
for sixteen-handed piano playing (4pf, tam-tam, high whistling)
Duration: 12' 00"
Manuscript
Tiefer & Tiefer (1983)for quintet (fl/vn.va.vc/pf)
Duration: 20' 00"
SME/EMS
2 Stücke für Tonband (1983)
Theatre music
Duration: 10' 00"
Manuscript
1 & 1 (1983-1984)
Music
for electronic tape
Duration: 27' 00"
Manuscript
Endless Music No 2 (1986)
Sound exhibition
for violin, bass clarinet and tam-tam
Duration: var.
Manuscript
blind play (1986)for piano / scenery
Duration: 8' 00"-12' 00"
Nepomuk Musik Verlag
3. Stück für Tonband (1987)
Music and dance
Duration: 3' 30"
Manuscript
Klanghaufen (Endless No 3) (1987)
Sound installation
Duration: var.
Manuscript
*der sechste sinn* (1987)
for mezzo-soprano, flute, clarinet (bass clarinet) trumpet, trombone, violin, viola, cello, harp and electronic tape
Texts: Konrad Bayer
Absurd opera based on Konrad Bayer.
Duration: 32' 00"
Manuscript
Refugium (1988)for guitar solo
Duration: 8' 00"
SME/EMS
Poesie des Südens (1988-1989)Singings
for mezzo-soprano, oboe (h'phone), saxophone (S-ino,s,a), violoncello, two percussion and electronic tape
Texts: Ponge, Fernando Pessoa, Odysseos Elytis, GiuseppeUngaretti
Duration: 20' 00"
Hug & Co. Musikverlage
Limmatquai 28-30
CH-8001 Zürich
Bläser Konstellation (1990)for thirteen wind with viraphone and percussion
Duration: 13' 00"
SME/EMS
KurvenKonturenFiguren (1985-1991) Composition
for orchestra (I-III)
Duration: 26' 00"
SME/EMS
kleiner Mozartgarten (1991)
Installation
for grand piano, electronic taping equipment, loud speaker and various materials
Duration: 15' 00"
Manuscript
Gestes (1991)Duo
for saxophone and percussion
Duration: 4' 00"
SME/EMS
Campi Colorati I-III (1989-1992) for piano solo (scordatura)
Duration: 24' 00"
SME/EMS
Friction (1992)
Sound installation
Duration: var.
Manuscript
Idiorhythmische Studie (1993)Installation
(wooden chair, electronic)
The ‘Idiorhythmische Studie’ is a solitary search for rhythms produced by ones own body while sitting upon a stool. When one (the audience) sits upon a wooden stool and, while wearing the headphones, moves slowly one begins to perceive ones own positional changes. The study is a closed system in which each individual visiting the installation is the interpreter and listener of their own concert. A study of oneself.
Duration: var.
SME/EMS
Spazio (1993-1994) 2nd tuning
for piano solo (scordatura)
Equidistant, choral sixteenth tone tuning
In this tuning the sound of the concert piano is crucially altered and the first aural impression is that of an alien, unknown instrument. ‘Spazio’ means room or fading speech. Each pitch in the middle and high registers of the piano is ‘spatially’ tuned. The three strings of every individual tone differs by a sixth-tone (33 cents), only the single bass strings remain unaltered. With this scordatura it is possible to play dense clusters, which, through the pressing of ten keys, allows thirty different pitches to sound. To suggest a word: ‘soundcubes’.
Duration: 14' 00"
SME/EMS
Message (1994)A choreographed music performance
for four percussionists (cymbals)
Four percussionists traverse the rows where the audience sit following a pre-drawn choreographic plan. The crashing of the cymbals behind the head and close to the ears allows the sound to reach directly into the inner body. There develops a kaleidoscope of overlapping pitches which intensify or extinguish each other, interfere or harmonise - the result is an almost ‘private’ sound. The inner and outer, the near and far, the slowly changing sculptural figure from sounding metal is a communication transcending explanation: Message.
Duration: 20' 00"
SME/EMS
Schöner Wolf (1995)Duo
for alto saxophone and viola (scordatura)
Duration: 8' 00"
SME/EMS
Odem (1995)
Speech composition
for one voice and multi-channel technology (electronic tape)
Duration: 38' 00"
Manuscript
Streichtrio I - III (1992-1996) with scordatura
Duration: 24' 00"
SME/EMS
(Parts available from SME: sFr. 22.-; € 22.-)
Sechs Walserminiaturen (1996) for soprano and violin
The aphorisms of Robert Walser (he calls them phrases) unexpectedly caught my attention during nightly readings of his prose. The resulting compositional sketches, all of which were produced in one day, were graphically and verbally fixed (drawn), later interpreted (crystallised) and then precisely notated. The melodic steps of the female voice are often microtonal and are to be performed in the tiniest of intervals in accordance with the interpretation of the texts. In the sixth miniature the violin is retuned resulting in new, profound harmonic situations as well as creating friction between the strings and the voice.
To set the texts of Walser to music, to elevate them and endure their depths filled me with an “incredibly intense joy”.
Duration: 8' 00"
SME/EMS
Deux Mondes (1996)for solo marimba and eight gongs
Duration: 10' 00"
SME/EMS
Falsches Konzert für 97 Saiten I - IV (1994-1997) for twenty-four solo strings in five groups (scordatura)
Duration: 24' 00"
SME/EMS
Tones (1997)Music
for three - seven instrumentalists
Duration: 14' 00"
SME/EMS
Veränderte Luft (1998) 3rd tuning
for piano in scordatura
I. Zehn Kugeln (Prolog) - Ten Spheres (prologue)
II. Veränderte Luft - Altered Air
III. Achtundachzig Punkte (Epilog) - Eighty-eight Points (Epilogue)
Nonequidistant complete retuning (non octave repetitative)
This three-part composition is based on a tuning of the piano whereby all of the pitches are altered. The mutations of the frequencies amounts to 1-44 cents higher or deeper (smaller than a quarter tone) and results in a variety of different intervals. The effect of the scordatura is likened to the slight movement of a hand through a regular, organised structure. The main body of the work is occupied with the shifted fifths and octaves which join to produce great harmonic figures before dissolving. The slow prologue and the quick epilogue consist of the 88 pitches of the piano, firstly as ‘harmonic spheres’ and finally as additive rows of points in a quick continuous tempo.
Duration: 11' 00"
SME/EMS
Vertikale Horizonte (1998)Quartet
for flute (bfl), clarinet (cl-a), violin and violoncello
Duration: 8' 00"
SME/EMS
Zarathustra Destillation (1999)for eleven solo voices (4322)
Duration: 25' 00"
SME/EMS
Klaviertrio (in Skordatur) (1999-2000) Duration: 15' 00"
SME/EMS
Klangmoment (1999-2000)for one actor
Duration: 3' 00"
SME/EMS
Locomozione (2000)for violin, viola and percussion
Duration: 16' 30"
SME/EMS
H A L O (2001) 4th tuning
for piano in scordatura
Equidistant, choral five sixths tone tuning.
All tones of the piano (excluding those in the bass register) are chorally modified and tuned at twice 166 cents augmented. A tone (key) results in a ‘triad’ which is somewhat larger than a minor third. This tone is the material for the composition entitled ‘HALO’ which means a circle of light (around the moon) or a hue.
Here, as in ‘Spazio’ (there it was chorally twice 33 cents), pitches are explicitly perceivable only in the bass register. In the middle and high registers the melodies are scattered and are only perceivable as a whole. The sounds are by no means intended as purely harmonic, the predominantly soft and gentle sounds are interspersed with percussive, drum-like hard (martellato) beats. In this fourth tuning the multidimensionality of a sound is explored anew and is a further attempt to remove the piano from its idiosyncratic position.
Duration: 20' 00"
SME/EMS
Gefärbte Variationen (2002) 5th tuning
for piano in scordatura
Non-equidistant, complete retuning (3-89 cents)
The symmetrically built, modified tuning of the 88 pitches is related to the scordatura in ‘Veränderte Luft’ - in this case however the degree of modification has doubled and amounts to not more than 89 cents. The possible interval combinations are exceedingly manifold and coloured differently in every octave.
The variations have no theme in the classical sense but are rather more rotationally permutable. The consonant intervals, like the octaves, fifths or fourths, are perceived as being subtly altered through the scordatura and acquire a vibrating form. By crossing the voices it is possible for the ear to continually select the melodic ways anew, the sound combinations are arranged symmetrically or additively. The accumulated tones at the end of the composition are gradually lost in the deepest registers and fade away like a dark trail….
Duration: 14' 00"
SME/EMS
Falsche Schönheit (2002)A harmonic study
for two string quartets in scordatura
There is already in the title of my composition two words which take a central position in the music itself, namely false and beauty. Can music be simultaneously beautiful and false or need it be true? Old questions are combined anew.
It was actually my intention to write a composition devoid of rhythms. Naturally, in relation to time, this is a grandiose illusion but the idea is tested waiving the rhythmical form of the eight single voices. The interplay between the variations in tempo and polymetric networks gives rise to a reserved and inconspicuous structure opening up the way for harmony.
All thirty-two strings of the instrument are tuned new: string quartet 1 by 20 cents and string quartet 2 by 40 cents augmented or diminished. It is now that one hears the unfamiliar or the false nonetheless the air vibrates and pays no attention to the beauty, to the false or the true in music.
Duration: 10' 30"
SME/EMS
Doppellesung (2002)for two performers (speakers)
Texts: Marcel Duchamp, Ludwig Wittgenstein
Two times eleven texts from the writings of Marcel Duchamp and Ludwig Wittgenstein.
Duration: var.
SME/EMS
Fünf Zusammenhänge (2003) for piano in scordatura
Duration: 21' 00"
SME/EMS
Vier Saiten (2003)for violin solo (scordatura)
Duration: 5' 30"
SME/EMS
Suite (2003-2004) (7 th tuning)
for piano in scordatura
I. Ostinato
II. Imitation
III. Fantasie
IV. Abweichung
V. Monochrom
VI. Einzeller
Duration: 22' 00"
SME/EMS
Coro Nuovo (2004)for prepared piano (scordatura)
Duration: 18' 30"
SME/EMS
Pur (2004-2005)9th tuning
for piano in scordatura
Duration: 10' 30"
SME/EMS
Mon silence discontinue! (2005)for soprano, oboe (English horn), violoncello and piano forte
Duration: 24' 00"
Manuscript
Collection (2005)10th Tuning
for piano in scordatura
I Collection
II Cercle
III Stamp
IV Three Planes
Duration: 19' 00"
SME/EMS
Grosse Stimmung (1989-2005)for piano solo in 10 different tunings
Ten works for piano solo (10 scordaturas). All scordaturas are practicable and do not damage the instruments.
The ten compositions can be put together in any order and performed singularly or in groups of works.
Four Steinway B's for smaller concert halls or 4 concert pianos (Steinway D) for larger concert halls (more than 200 people) are necessary for the complete performance.
Campi Colorati I-III – composition for piano in new tuning
Spazio – 2nd tuning
Veränderte Luft – 3rd tuning
H A L O – 4th tuning
Gefärbte Variationen – 5th tuning
Fünf Zusammenhänge – 6th tuning
Suite – 7th tuning
Coro Nuovo – 8th tuning
Pur – 6th tuning
Collection – 10th tuning
SME/EMS
Spazio Due (2006)Quartet
for trumpet in B, Eb Alto saxophone, trombone and piano in skordatura (2nd tuning)
Duration: 13' 00"
SME/EMS
Spazio Tre (2007)
Septet in 3 groups in three movements
for trumpet, saxophone, trombone, viola, violoncello, double bass and piano
Duration: 18' 00"
Manuscript
LO-TO (2007)
Action
for 9-18 lotos flute players
Duration: variabel
Manuscript
Veränderte Luft (2008)
Quartet
for clarinet, viola, violoncello and piano (in scordatura)
Duration: 19' 00"
Manuscript
Echte Zeit (2008)Three-part composition
for soprano saxophone and light projection (video) with audio aparatus (1 player)
Duration: 45' 00"
SME/EMS
Daheim im Knoten (2009)
for piano
Duration: 1' 00"
Manuscript
Chroma 24 (2009)for Renaissance recorders (8) and gamba consort (5) in meantone tuning
Duration: 14' 30"
SME/EMS
Alte Stimmung (2009-2010)Eight songs over a self-written poem
for high soprano and tempered piano
Props: tea cup, floor vase, cardboard box.
Duration: 20' 00"
SME/EMS
Three Timpani (2010)for one percussionist
Duration: 44' 00"
SME/EMS
Fanfare ohne Blech (2010)
for piccolo, bass clarinet, percussion, piano, violin and violoncello
Duration: 1' 00"
Manuscript
Octaves for Two (2011)for violin (scordatura) and piano
Duration: 20' 00"
SME/EMS
Oneonetwo (2011-2012)for piano in scordatura and percussion
Duration: 22' 30"
SME/EMS
< H > (2012)for vibraphone solo in scordatura
Duration: 13' 30"
SME/EMS
Octaves for Four (2013)for piano quartet
Violin, viola and violoncello in scordatura.
Piano in tempered tuning.
Duration: 19' 00"
SME/EMS
Schnee (Ein Ritual) (2013)Trio
for horn, voice and percussion
Duration: 21' 00"
SME/EMS
(2014)Duration: 20' 00"
SME/EMS
(2014)Duration: 18' 00"
SME/EMS
(2014-2015)Duration: 15' 00"
Manuscript
(2016)Duration: 17' 30"-18' 00"
Manuscript
Haubensak, Edu: Netze legen. Gedanken zu differierenden Stimmungen, in: Positionen 48 (2001)
Haubensak, Edu: Musik ohne Gewicht. Der amerikanische Komponist Morton Feldman und sein radikales Denken, in:
NZZ (10.1.2015) 7 (2015), S. 59 [
Internet]
Möller, Torsten: Mathematisch, mithin poetisch. Komponistenporträts von Edu Haubensak und René Wohlhauser, in: Dissonanz 108 (2009), S. 55
Zimmerlin, Alfred: Wo sind die Orientierungspunkte?, in:
NZZ (2. Mai 2003) (2003), S. 58
Rakusa, Ilma (et al.): Stück für 2 Stimmen (Odem), in: Du 5 (1996), S. 68-70