Georg Friedrich Haas’s new orchestral work opens at the void. A solo contraforte—a sort of improved contrabassoon with a more focused, melodic tone—holds a low F#. A solo violin looks down on it from far above, playing close, dissonant intervals in the high reaches of the harmonic spectrum. Slowly, the violin descends. The orchestra begins to expel the emptiness, adding the rest of the notes of the overtone series. This process lasts about four minutes in chronological time. It could feel like an instant, or an eternity.
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