In Vain

Georg Friedrich Haas' style recalls that of György Ligeti in its use of micropolyphony, microintervals and exploitation of the overtone series. Haas' "In Vain, for 24 instruments" is an outrageously successful example of layer upon layer of serialistic leitmotifs that cannot be singled out, as if they were phobic to 'empty spaces'. Haas' leitmotifs are to be grasped massively as they are intended to overpopulate the space they occupy not with hints (à la Nørgaard) but with their very bodily presence, explicit and assertive.

In 1660 the Restoration put an end to a period of artistic austerity and saw a rebirth of musical life in England, encouraged by a powerful need to be entertained. Many works for harpsichord were published by famous composers, yet also by others who are today quite forgotten. Caroline Huynh Van Xuan presents an original and hitherto unrecorded programme of grounds that enables one to rediscover the repertory and the vitality of the English music scene in the late 17th and early 18th centuries.