Riots

The five movements of Riots are a series of dedications to composers that exerted an important influence on me. The title is an anagram of trios, referring to the prevailing three-part writing.
The first movement, For Nancarrow, features a proportional canon of the ubiquitous melodic structure.
The second movement, Béla Bartóknak, is a dedication to the composer of Allegro Barbaro.
Georg Kröll, is a composer and theory teacher at the Cologne conservatory. The third movement, Für Georg Kröll, presents the harmonic and melodic material in statu nascendi.
Voor Clarlow, refers to the Indian-English-German-Dutch pioneer of computer music Clarence Barlow.
The last movement, is dedicated to György Ligeti (Ligeti Györgynek), and combines most elements exposed in the previous moments.

The five movements create a web of motivic references which can be summarized in the following way:


Info

  • version for saxophone, electric guitar and double bass (1991/92)
    Premiere: April 12,1992  by Ugly Culture
  • version for flute/clarinet, violin, cello/double bass, vibraphone and piano (1993/94)
    Premiere: Ottawa, October 24, 1993 by Ensemble Denis Schingh

Duration: 11’30” minutes

Publisher: peermusic

CD: Ugly Culture: Missionare Neuer Musik, KMZ

 


Recording (from Missionare Neuer Musik by Ugly Culture)

Riots1.mp3
Riots2.mp3
Riots3.mp3
Riots4.mp3
Riots5.mp3

Reviews

[Ugly Culture played original compositions] such as “Rukus” by Christian Wolff or “Riots” by Georg Hajdu. While Christian Wolff amalgamates closed song-like figures to an arbitrary patch-work, Georg Hajdu’s work consists of bizarre composers’ portraits: The machine-like stratification of rhythms à la Conlon Nancarrow clash together in the heterogeneous instrumentation, the “stile barbaro” Béla Bartók’s is subscribed with blasting bass power.
Kölner Stadtanzeiger, Thursday, October 31, 1991.

Georg Hajdu gave a long and informative talk to his Riots, one last première. It’s a suite of five miniatures, each a tribute-by-imitation to an important 20th century composer such as Bartók or Ligeti.
It succeeded on the level of a mind game, allowing the listener to pick out the influences of the composers in question.
The Ottawa Citizen, Monday, October 25, 1993.