Georg Friedrich Haas was born in Graz, a city in the east of Austria, but spent his childhood in the mountainous province of Vorarlberg, on the Swiss border. The landscape and the atmosphere of the place have left a lasting impression on his personality.

The atmosphere was marked not so much by natural beauty in the accepted sense of the word. Rather, Haas experienced the mountains as a menace; he felt closed in by the narrow valley where the sun rarely penetrated. Nature for him represented a dark force.

The composer adds: “Just as important for me was the experience of being an outsider: unlike my younger siblings, I never learned to speak the local Alemannic dialect. Also, I was a Protestant in a predominantly Catholic society.”

Haas has not had an easy time of it as a composer. He speaks openly of the years of “total failure” in trying to make his mark—another experience to leave its imprint on his development, aggravating his pessimistic leanings. Success, when it did gradually emerge, only mitigated his pessimism but could never wholly eliminate it.

It is no wonder, then, that night, darkness, and the loss of illusions should have played such an important role in his oeuvre (such as his Hölderlin-opera Nacht (Night), 1995/98). It was not until quite recently that his music has been illuminated by light.

Light effects, as integral components of a range of his compositions, have featured prominently for quite some time now, designed by artists especially for the music. (in vain, 2000, and particularly Hyperion, a Concerto for Light and Orchestra, 2006). However, light as opposed to darkness first emerged as late as 2006 in Sayaka for percussion and accordion as well as in the piano trio Ins Licht (Into the Light), 2007, written for the farewell concert marking my retirement from Universal Edition.

Georg Friedrich Haas is known and respected internationally as a highly sensitive and imaginative researcher into the inner world of sound. Most of his works (with the notable exception of the Violin Concerto, 1998) make use of microtonality, which the composer has subjected to thorough examination in the wake of Ivan Wyschnegradsky and Alois Hába.