Hans Peter Haller

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Hans Peter Haller (born October 26, 1929 in Radolfzell ; † April 16, 2006 in Denzlingen ) was a German composer and pioneer of electroacoustic music .

Haller studied church music in Heidelberg from 1947 and took composition lessons with Wolfgang Fortner and René Leibowitz . From 1950 he worked as a production manager and program editor at Südwestfunk Baden-Baden. From 1954 to 1958 he studied musicology at the University of Freiburg with Wilibald Gurlitt .

After returning to Südwestfunk in 1959, he increasingly turned to electronic and new music. For the composition Mantra , a commission by Karlheinz Stockhausen for Südwestfunk (1969), Haller built a sound converter with engineer Peter Lawo. In 1970, the head of the music department at Südwestfunk, Heinrich Strobel, awarded Cristóbal Halffter and Haller a double order for an electroacoustic work . The device designed by Haller for this purpose ('Haller's great box 4') was the forerunner of the halaphone , a “fully electronic sound control device for moving a sound source in a given space”, which was manufactured by the Lawo company .

In 1972 Haller became head of the newly established experimental studio of the Heinrich Strobel Foundation of Südwestfunk. Halffters Planto por las Victimas de la Violencia , the first work with electronic room sound control, was premiered at the Donaueschinger Musiktage .

From the beginning of the 1980s, Luigi Nono's entire late work was created in the experimental studio , comparing Haller's importance for these compositions with that of Joseph Joachims for Brahms' violin concerto. In particular, the late main work Prometeo would not have been possible in this form without Haller's collaboration. In addition to Nono, Haller also worked with composers such as Pierre Boulez ( Répons ), Kazimierz Serocki ( pianophony ), Brian Ferneyhough , ( Time and Motion Study ), Dieter Schnebel ( monotonies ) and Emmanuel Nunes ( changes ).

In addition, Haller taught from 1974 to 1990 at the Universities of Freiburg and Basel and at the Freiburg University of Music . At the end of 1989 Haller went into early retirement in order to write a documentation on the experimental studio and research into electronic sound conversion on behalf of the Heinrich Strobel Foundation. ("The experimental studio of the Heinrich Strobel Foundation of Südwestfunk Freiburg 1971–1989. Research into electronic sound conversion and its history.", 2 volumes, Verlag Nomos, Baden-Baden 1995–96).

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personal data
SURNAME Haller, Hans Peter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German composer and pioneer of electroacoustic music
DATE OF BIRTH October 26, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Radolfzell
DATE OF DEATH April 16, 2006
Place of death Denzlingen