Phill Niblock (1933–2024) was an American composer and a leading figure in experimental music and sound art. Beginning in the 1960s, he devoted himself to creating long, dense sound compositions based on the slow layering of tones and micro-interval deviations, which generate intense acoustic fields. He served for many years as director of Experimental Intermedia in New York, which became an important platform for presenting experimental art. His works have been performed worldwide and have significantly influenced the development of drone music and contemporary music.
Alois Hába (1893–1973) was a Czech composer, music theorist, and educator, and one of the pioneers of microtonal music in Europe. He was born in Vizovice, Moravia, and studied composition in Prague, Vienna, and Berlin, where he became acquainted with the modern musical movements of the early 20th century. He became famous primarily for developing musical systems utilizing quarter-tones and other microintervals, for which specially modified musical instruments were also created. From 1923, he taught at the Prague Conservatory, where he founded the Department of Quarter-Tone Music and significantly influenced the development of modern music in Central Europe. His oeuvre includes operas, chamber and orchestral works, and remains one of the major milestones of the 20th-century musical avant-garde.
Miroslav Beinhauer (1993) is a pianist and player of the six-tone harmonium who specializes in contemporary music and 20th-century music. He studied at the Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno with Helena Weiser, at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, where his professor was Jan Jiracek von Arnim, and at the Royal Conservatory in Ghent with Daan Vandewalle.
Concert on Alois Hába's Six-Tone Harmonium
This unique six-tone harmonium was custom-made in the 1920s according to the specifications of Czech composer Alois Hába, who needed to transcend the limitations of the standard twelve-tone octave for his compositions. The instrument was crafted in the workshop of August Förster in Löbau, Germany. President T. G. Masaryk also contributed to the public collection for its production.
Today, there are only three such instruments in the world – and only one of them is playable. It is located in Prague and is part of the collection of the National Museum – Czech Museum of Music. At the end of September 2026, it will be brought to Trenčín for one evening so that the exceptional Czech pianist Miroslav Beinhauer can perform a concert on it.
Beinhauer is the only performer in the world capable of mastering this unique instrument. His interest in it began in 2018 with the premiere of Hába’s sixth-tone opera Přijď království Tvé (Thy Kingdom Come), continued with the premiere performance and recording of the only solo opus for this instrument – Six Pieces for Sixth-Tone Harmonium op. 37. Since then, new repertoire for sixth-tone harmonium has been commissioned by Beinhauer from composers such as Bernhard Lang, Klaus Lang, Marc Sabat, Georg Friedrich Haas, Arash Yazdani and others. At the final event of the pssst series within Trenčín 2026, two pieces will be heard that frame Beinhauer’s interest in the instrument and his exploration of its possibilities: a score composed on commission by American minimalist Phill Niblock and one piece by Hába himself.
Program:
Alois Hába: Adagio No. 3, Op. 37 For Six-Tone Harmonium (1928) – 4 min
Phill Niblock: HarmoniusF or Six-Tone Harmonium (2022) – 60 min
Slovak premiere, 65 min
without a language barrier
foto: Prague Quiet Music Coll