Performed partly in complete darkness, Georg Friedrich Haas' in vain encourages listeners to relinquish their sight and trust their ears as they experience an aural landscape of swirling, shimmering sounds--where darkness and light collide.
The London Sinfonietta will present the U.K. premiere of in vain on November 16, during the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. The London premiere will take place a few weeks later, at Queen Elizabeth Hall on December 6. Both performances will be led by Emilio Pomàrico.
Sir Simon Rattle called the piece, "an astonishing work of art that has become a cult wherever it is played. It's one of the first great masterpieces of the 21st century. And it seems never to be played just once. The minute people have heard it, they are hungry for more."
in vain, a work for 24 instrumentalists, received its world debut in 2000. Haas, who was born in Austria and has spent most of his life there, wrote the piece in protest against the rise of the far-right Freedom Party in the 1999 Austrian elections. in vain hints at a world where dark, unnatural forces are at work--wtih most attempts at social progress seem destined for failure.
Haas has said that the title refers to the spiral structure of the work, "returning to a situation believed to be overcome."
The piece is an optical illusion for the ears--inspired, in part, by the stairways in the lithographs of artist M.C. Escher--where the musical lines seem to be climbing higher. In reality, however, they lead right back to where they started.
in vain is not the first piece in which Haas has experimented with "lighting affects." His Third String Quartet, subtitled "in the dark," is an hour-long work that is performed entirely in the dark.
A performance of this work will take place during the White Light Festival, at Lincoln Center in New York City, on November 19.
Prior to the U.K. performances of in vain, the London Sinfonietta is inviting people to post photos based on the theme of "darkness and light" to the Sinfonietta's Facebook page.
A conversation with the composer will take place at 6:45 p.m. before the London performance on December 6.
In the meantime, for more info on Haas' London and Huddersfield performances, visit londonsinfonietta.org.uk.
