Edu Haubensak was born in Helsinki and musically educated in theory and composition at the Academy of Music in Basel from 1975 until 1979. He developed scenic music compositions, electronic works and chamber musical works. In 1984/5 he was a guest and scholar at the 'Istituto Svizzero di Roma' (Swiss Institute in Rome) and in 1984 he took first prize at the international composers seminar in Boswil. He was a fellow founder of the concert series 'Fabrikkomposition' at the Roten Fabrik in Zurich (1981-89). He is intensively occupied with newly tuned instruments. He attended composition courses and master classes given by Heinz Holliger and Klaus Huber. In 1994 he was awarded a sabbatical year by the city of Zurich. He has won various scholarships and received commissions for compositions and broadcast productions. Edu Haubensaks' work catalogue contains vocal and instrumental orchestra and chamber music, scenic music and radiophonic works, as well as concept compositions, performances and sound installations. He lives and works in Zurich.
Work list
Metamorphose (1976)
Instrumentation: for guitar solo
Duration: 6' 00"
Hug & Co. Musikverlage
Limmatquai 28-30 CH-8001 Zürich
Schwarz Weiss (1979)
Instrumentation: for piano solo
Duration: 10' 00"
Hug & Co. Musikverlage
Limmatquai 28-30 CH-8001 Zürich
Gleichgewichte (1979-1981)
Instrumentation: for two violins, two violas, two clarinets, trombone, two actors, picture, object
Duration: 40' 00" Manuscript
Drei Klangbilder (1981)
Instrumentation: for piano, electronic tape and scenery
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.
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'.
Instrumentation: 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.
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".
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.
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.
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….
Instrumentation: 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.
Instrumentation: 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
"ON bedeutet hier ein Vorwärtsgehen eines Pulses, ein 'go onʼ von wechselnden
Metren und Tempi. Das meist langsam pulsierende Werk wird durch das Schlagzeug polyrhythmisch verändert. Diese etwas rascheren oder langsameren Tempi sind variierend gegen das Grundtempo verschoben und irritieren die Wahrnehmung der etablierten Zeitebenen. Ein kleines Set von Schlaginstrumenten, eine kleine Trommel und ein grosses Becken ist klanglich äquivalent zur akustischen Gitarre.
Mit der gesetzten Skordatur von drei Saiten (E-20 Cent, D+40 Cent und H-60 Cent) erscheinen neue harmonische Konstellationen im Zusammenklang mit den temperiert gestimmten Saiten. Insbesondere ist für die akustische Gitarre eine reiche Palette von erweiterten Klängen zu hören. Unterstützt oder verändert werden diese Klänge durch die Anweisungen stufenweise sul ponticello oder sul tasto zu spielen. So entstehen, neben den Mikroharmonien, unterschiedlich abgestufte Obertonqualitäten.
Die Uraufführung fand am 6. April 2017 im Kunstraum Walcheturm in Zürich mit Christian Buck (Gitarre) und Christian Wolfarth Schlagzeug) statt."
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