Josef Matthias Hauer
Josef Mattias Hauer (
March 19,
1883 –
September 22,
1959) was an
Austrian composer and music theorist. He is most famous for developing, independent of and years before
Arnold Schoenberg, a method for composing with all 12 notes of the
chromatic scale.
Hauer was born in
Wiener Neustadt and died in
Vienna. He had an early musical training which included zither,
cello,
choral conducting and
organ, but evidently did not include theory and composition for he claimed that he was self-taught. In
1918 he published his first work on music theory (a tone-color theory based on J.W.v.Goethe's), and in august 1919 devised his method for composing with
twelve tones. Hauer's compositional techniques of composition are extraordinary various and reach from building-block techniques to methods using a chord series that is generated out of the twelve-tone row ("Melos"). In fact, the compositional techniques change in almost every piece. The so-called 44 "tropes" and their compositional usage ("trope-technique") are essential for Hauer's twelve-tone techniques. In contrast to a twelve-tone row that contains a fix succession of twelve tones a trope consists of two complementary hexachords in which there's no fix tone sequence. The tropes are used for structural and intervallic views on the twelve-tone system. Every trope offers certain symmetries that can be used by the composer.
Hauer wrote prolifically, both music and prose describing his methods, until
1938, when his music was added by the
Nazis to the "
degenerate art" (
Entartete Kunst) exhibit. Wisely keeping a low profile, he stayed in Austria through the war, publishing nothing; but even after the war he published little more, although he probably wrote several hundreds of pieces which remained in draft.
From the 1920's Hauer has been a model for literature several times, e.g. in Otto Stoessl's "Die Sonnenmelodie", Franz Werfel's "Verdi" (Matthias Fischboeck). It has been found out that - besides
Arnold Schönberg and
Theodor W. Adorno - Hauer was also a model for Adrian Leverkühn in
Thomas Mann's novel
Doktor Faustus. Late in life Hauer spoke about Mann, as well as
Theodor W. Adorno, with great bitterness, for he felt that both men had misunderstood him. Adorno had written about Hauer, but only disparagingly. Because of his later achievements and developments it has also been assumed by many scholars that Hauer is also a model for the "Joculator Basiliensis" in Hermann Hesse's "Glass-bead Game".
All of Hauer's copious compositions after 1940 are named "Zwölftonspiel" or Zwölftonmusik" (Twelve-tone game, or twelve-tone music.)
*
Fürsprache für Hauer—Hermann Heiß und die Hintergründe eines Briefes von Thomas Mann an Ellie Bommersheim im Jahre 1949, lit. Speech for the defence of Hauer—Hermann Heiß and background of a letter of Mann's with Ellie Bommersheim in 1949,
Herbert Henck, kompost publishing house 1998, ISBN 3980234134.
* Josef Matthias Hauer. Schriften, Manifeste, Dokumente, Nikolaus Fheodoroff, Edition Österreichische Musikzeit, Vienna 2003. ("Josef Matthias Hauer - Writings, Manifests, Documents")
* Zwischen Trope und Zwölftonspiel, Johann Sengstschmid, Gustav Bosse, Regensburg 1980 ("Between Trope and Twelve-tone Game")
* Apokalyptische Fantasie, op. 5 (1913)
* Nomos, op. 19 (1919)
*Various
Hölderlin-Kantaten,
Der Frühling pg. 21/3;
Emilie vor ihrem Brauttag pg. 58 (1928)
Fantasie für Klavier, literally, Fantasy for a piano 39 (1925)
Charakterstücke für Salonorchester Salambo (1929), opera
Die schwarze Spinne, lit. the black spider (1932), opera
Zwölftonmusik für neun Soloinstrumente op. 73 (twelve-tone music for nine solo instruments) (1937)
Zwölftonmusik für Orchester (twelve-tone music for orchestra) (1939)
Zwölftonmusik für Orchester mit einer Zwölftonreihe, die in sechs verschiedenen Tropen steht, lit. with a twelve-tone row, in six different tropes (1945)
Zwölftonspiel für fünf Violinen (Hermann Heiß gewidmet), lit. twelve-tone piece for five violins, dedicated to Hermann Heiß (1949)
Zwölftonspiel für Klavier zu vier Händen. lit. twelve-tone piece for piano four hands (1956)see also chapter 5 'Out of Tune' Hauer's Legacy and the Aesthetics of Minimalism in Art and Music' in Visible Deeds of Music: Art and Music from Wagner to Cage, by Simon Shaw-Miller (Yale University Press, 2002) pp. 163-207
* Über die Klangfarbe ("About tone-color", 1918)
* Vom Wesen des Musikalischen ("On the essence of music", 1920)
* Deutung des Melos ("Interpretation of the Melos", 1923)
* Vom Melos zur Pauke ("From the Melos to the kettledrum", 1925)
* Zwölftontechnik. Die Lehre von den Tropen ("twelve-tone technique. teachings on the tropes", 1926)
*
Josef Matthias Hauer page
