Trois silences déchirés (in memoriam Pavel Haas) – Bruno Giner

Two years before his deportation to the Theresienstadtghetto-camp (December 2, 1941), the Czech composer Pavel Haas wrote one of his most beautiful works of chamber music: the Suite for oboe and piano opus 12, the starting point of Three Broken Silences (in Memoriam Pavel Haas)

In addition to the similarity of construction in three movements, the entire material of this work is derived from some of the melodic or harmonic formulas of the Suite, to which is sometimes added a musical encryption based on the letters of its name, i.e. si-la-la-mib (H.A.A.S) or si-la-lab (H.A.AS)

The third Silence is directly inspired by the Hussite chorale Ktož jsú boži bojovníci, which permeates Haas’s piece in several places, notably in the last part of its second movement.