At the time of Haas's birth, his father Zikmund was employed at the local branch of the textile factory Taussik & Sohn. However, in 1907, he opened his own shoe shop, “The Hare’s: Czech Industry’s Shoes” (a play on the name Haas – Hase, i.e. “hare” in German). Alongside merchants, the Haas family also boasted artistic figures: his uncle Michael Epstein was an actor in Vienna, Pavel and Hugo's cousin Bedřiška Reichnerová was a soloist at the National Theatre in Prague, and their uncle Richard Reichner, with whom Pavel and Hugo spent their holidays, was a Jewish cantor in Kolín. It was in the proximity of his uncle that Pavel Haas took his first musical steps, surrounded by synagogue music, which he would later draw upon extensively in his own compositions.
Pavel Haas received his primary education at a German school, transferring to the First Czech State Real School in 1910. His growing interest in music, encouraged by his piano teacher Anna Holubová's recommendation to study music theory, eventually led to a break in his real school studies between 1913 and 1914 to attend the Music School of Beseda brněnská, where he began taking lessons in piano, harmony, counterpoint, aesthetics, and music history. Among his teachers was also Jan Kunc, who would later become the first director of the Brno Conservatory. Haas left the real school on 25 September 1915.
Haas's first composition, Concert Piece No. 1 for Piano, is dated 7 August 1912. His early period culminated in 1916 with works such as Piano Sonata in B-flat major, Three Fugues for String Quartet, Psalm for Tenor and Organ, Violin Sonata in G major, fragments of two orchestral pieces on Old Testament themes – Jonah (1914) and The Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt (1915), a fragment of a cantata At the Crossroads based on Jan Neruda‘s poem Winter Ballad, and several songs set to texts by Nikolaus Lenau, Friedrich Schiller, Adelbert von Chamisso, Franz Grillparzer, and his brother Hugo Haas. Among his unfinished scores is the Symphony in E major, which he worked on during the summer of 1916; nevertheless, the score comprises an impressive number of sixty-eight pages. His first opus number was assigned to the cycle Six Songs in Folk Tone, completed in the spring of 1919. Folk inspiration remained one of the characteristic features of Haas's work.
In March 1917, Pavel Haas was conscripted into military service, temporarily halting his music studies and compositional work. However, in the 1917–1918 school year, he resumed his harmony lessons with Vilém Petrželka. In autumn 1919, he and his brother were admitted to the newly established Brno Conservatory, joining the classes of Jan Kunc (composition) and Vilém Petrželka (counterpoint), entering directly into the third year. Under Kunc's guidance, Haas composed Little Preludes for Piano, Three Songs to Words by Josef Svatopluk Machar, Op. 2, and String Quartet No. 1 in C-sharp minor, Op. 3. In September 1920, he transitioned to the newly established master school led by Leoš Janáček, becoming one of its two first graduates (diploma dated 28 June 1922) along with Gustav Homola. Haas shared a very warm relationship with his teacher and mentor Leoš Janáček, although he later recalled Janáček’s instruction with mixed feelings: “One day, he destroyed with heavy lines the arduous work of a young, frightened mind and next day he passionately raged over his own hieroglyphs. [...] The Master hardly ever praised anyone. He either condemned or remained silent.” Under Janáček's supervision, Haas composed his Chinese Songs, Op. 4, and the symphonic poem Melancholy Scherzo in 1921. The latter piece reflects his unfulfilled love for Marie Jarůšková, whom he met in 1920; however, the relationship had to end two years later due to societal conventions, reportedly also because of Haas's Jewish heritage. “A great garden, breathing with spring and love... The soul is restless like a rippling sea, the heart is tossed like an abandoned ship, an endless longing, painful as the setting sun... Darkness – evening – a spring evening, a painful evening... The little stars shine as the only hope... She did not come... Fate is harsh, unyielding!!! Another of those evenings when one loses faith in love, in life and everything...” Pavel Haas wrote after one of their planned meetings that Marie did not attend. The effort to cope with the breakup with Marie was later embodied in Haas's piano quintet with tenor solo Fata Morgana, Op. 6, from 1923, set to the words of Rabindranath Tagore, and in String Quartet No. 2 “From the Monkey Mountains”, Op. 7, from 1925, which recalls Marie with a quotation from the song When I Arrived, My Love Was Still Sleeping.
Haas's symphonic poem Melancholy Scherzo (1921) reflects his unfulfilled love for Marie Jarůšková. Brno Philharmonic, conducted by Israel Yinon.
Shoemaker and Composer
After graduating from the master school, Pavel Haas entered a period of artistic and existential searching. At twenty-three, he initially tried to establish himself as a composer, pianist, and teacher. Eventually, however, he became a partner in his father's business. Despite this, he continued composing and was actively involved in the Club of Moravian Composers, also working as a music critic and journalist. While still a student at the master school, he began collaborating with the theatre: under the pseudonym H. Pavlas, he created the now-lost incidental music for the Brno production of Čapek's play R.U.R. in 1921. In January 1923, he wrote music for Quido Maria Vyskočil's play Bandits’ End and at the beginning of March of the same year, incidental music for Georg Büchner's Woyzeck for the Prague actor and director Emil Artur Longen, who performed with his company, Revoluční Scény, from February to June 1923 at the Brno Reduta theatre. The end of 1925 and the beginning of 1926 were filled with work on A Merry Death by Nikolai Nikolayevich Evreinov for the State Theatre in Brno, Primus Tropicus by Zdeněk Němeček for the Vinohrady Theatre, and Pulcinella's Victory by Blahoslav Zavadil (premiere on 22 January 1926). In 1928, he created incidental music for Samson Raphaelson's play The Jazz Singer for the State Theatre in Brno. Less than a week before the premiere, on 12 August 1928, Leoš Janáček died. As the secretary of the Club of Moravian Composers, Pavel Haas delivered the eulogy at his funeral.
One of Haas's most performed works, String Quartet No. 2 “From the Monkey Mountains”, Op. 7, was premiered on 16 March 1926 in Brno by the Moravian Quartet. Performed by the Pavel Haas Quartet.
Between 1923 and 1930, Haas composed relatively few pieces, mostly chamber music. However, these works are marked by considerable compositional maturity. Following Fata Morgana Op. 6 (1923) and String Quartet No. 2 “From the Monkey Mountains”, Op. 7, being premiered on 16 March 1926 by the Moravian Quartet, Haas composed the song cycle The Chosen One, Op. 8, in 1927 to the words of Jiří Wolker for the unusual ensemble of flute (piccolo), violin, French horn, and piano. With the initiation of the Moravian Wind Quintet in 1928 in Brno, he composed one of his most performed pieces – Wind Quintet, Op. 10. “Movement governs this carefree composition. Whether it be the rhythm of the open landscape and birdsong, the irregular movement of a rural vehicle, the warm song of the human heart, the quiet cold flow of moonbeams, the exuberance of a night spent awake and carousing, or the pure, innocent smile of the morning sun... it is always movement that reigns supreme. Therefore, I must particularly emphasize that in this composition, the use of percussion instruments, jazz in the last movement, is not arbitrary or peculiar but firmly connected with the original plan of the work, which rhythmically and dynamically culminates in the final movement,” Haas described the Wind Quintet in the seventh issue of Hudební rozhledy magazine in 1926. It should be noted that in later performances, the composer omitted the percussion instruments in the fourth movement, primarily for practical reasons. In 1929, he also composed the male chorus The Carnival, Op. 9, again to the words of Jiří Wolker.
In 1926, Haas described his Wind Quintet, Op. 10, in the seventh issue of Hudební rozhledy magazine: “Movement governs this carefree composition.” Performed by the Stuttgart Wind Quintet.
Radio and Film
In 1924, the Brno branch of Czechoslovak Radio was established, becoming an important part of the cultural life of the Moravian metropolis over the following years. One of the prominent figures was the newly engaged conductor and Haas's friend and colleague from the Club of Moravian Composers, Břetislav Bakala, who built a chamber Brno Radio Symphony Orchestra of twenty-six members over four years. In 1930, he invited his colleagues and former classmates to write something for the orchestra. Pavel Haas responded with the Radio Overture, Op. 11, which is a celebration of the radio and its inventor, Marchese Guglielmo Marconi. The piece is scored for a small orchestra, with four male voices joining at the end. The text was written by Hugo Haas. Shortly after the premiere of the Overture in the summer of 1931, Pavel Haas accompanied his mother to Germany, where he sketched his next composition – a concerto for organ, which gradually became Psalm 29 for organ, baritone, women's choir, and small orchestra. In this piece, Haas captured the sound of bells in the monumental cathedral in Cologne.
Meanwhile, Haas's brother Hugo established himself not only on Prague theatre stages but also as a sought-after film actor. With director Martin Frič, he made the film Life is a Dog, for which, after much persuasion, Pavel Haas wrote the music. The film was completed in 1933 and was a great success. In 1934, the Moldavia-Film company made a German version, also using Haas's score, but credited the composer as Erich Einegg, against which Haas fought even in court. Haas's filmography also includes The Little Pet (1934) and Mother Hen (1937), credited under the pseudonym Ivan Pavlas). While the early 1930s marked professional success for Haas, on Christmas Day 1933, his mother Olga died of cancer. During her illness, Haas became close to the Prague doctor Soňa Jakobson, the wife of the prominent Russian philologist Roman Jakobson, who had been treating Olga since 1932. The initially platonic relationship led to the divorce of the Jakobsons and Pavel Haas's marriage to Soňa in October 1935. Their daughter Olga was born on 1 November 1937.
After much persuasion, Pavel Haas composed the music for Martin Frič's film Life is a Dog, in which his brother Hugo starred. The film was a tremendous success!
The Charlatan
Soňa Haasová insisted that her husband focus solely on composition. For the first time since the beginning of his career of an artist, Haas concentrated primarily on creative work. He also gave private lessons, with pupils including Karel Horký, Richard Kozderka, and Lubomír Peduzzi. Before his marriage to Soňa Jakobson, he completed the Suite for Piano, Op. 13, premiered on 10 February 1936 at the Palais Ehrbar in Vienna by the young, promising graduate of Vilém Kurz’s master school, Bernard Kaff. Around this time, in 1934, Haas began working on his opera The Charlatan after finally finding a suitable subject in Josef Winckler's novel Doctor Eisenbart, about an early modern travelling surgeon. However, after the Nuremberg Laws were passed in 1935, any collaboration with Jewish authors was banned in Germany, making Haas's connection with Winckler highly dangerous. Unwilling to abandon the project, Haas removed all references to German settings from the libretto, renamed the main character Pustrpalka, and decided to give all the main characters Czech names, modelling the story after the Czech Mastičkář (meaning a “quack” or “charlatan”). The libretto was completed in May and June 1934, and the score was finished two years later. In his quest for a grand spectacle in the Baroque folk style, Haas prescribed a large ensemble for The Charlatan, including thirty soloists, two choirs, dancers, and extras. The premiere took place on 2 April 1938 at the Brno Theatre on the City Walls (now the Mahen Theatre), conducted by Quido Arnoldi, directed by Rudolf Walter, with set design by František Muzika and choreography by the legendary Ivo Váňa Psota. At the end of 1938, Haas received the Smetana Foundation Prize for The Charlatan (alongside the female composer Vítězslava Kaprálová). By the end of July, the opera had been performed seven times. However, after the Munich Agreement of 30 September 1938, the opera had to be withdrawn from the repertoire. A rapid series of events followed: on 28 January 1939, Haas's compositions—a suite of folk songs From Evening to Morning—were broadcast on the radio for the last time. That same year, his attempts to secure a teaching position at the newly opened conservatory in Tehran, as well as entry visas to the Soviet Union, England, and the USA, were unsuccessful. His brother Hugo managed to emigrate to France and then to the USA, entrusting his newborn son to Pavel and Soňa’s care. On the day of Czechoslovakia's occupation, 15 March 1939, the Haas family fled to Prague only to return to Brno the following day. Haas was forced to give up work as a journalist for the National Newspaper and National News. Before that, he wrote mainly about cultural life in Brno and contemporary music in general. In September 1939, the Haas family had to surrender their radio, and Soňa was barred from practising medicine, depriving the family of its main source of income. Haas's students gradually dwindled, so he took on teaching singing at the Jewish Gymnasium, which was to be closed soon after. For financial reasons, the couple divorced on 13 April 1940. Soňa Haasová resumed her medical practice, and they continued to share the same apartment. In the spring of 1941, Pavel Haas had to move in to live with his father on Smetanova Street. On 25 April, both were relocated to Sadová 8, where several Jewish families were crammed into one flat. In an apartment of his distant relative Pavla Rohlenová, Haas secretly gave lessons and met with his ex-wife. On 2 December 1941, he was deported on one of the very first transports, G-731, to Terezín. In Brno, he left behind his unfinished Symphony for Large Orchestra, which he was never given a chance to complete. After the war, Osvald Chlubna carried on with the work and it was not until almost fifty years later that the symphony was completed by Zdeněk Zouhar. The first movement is imbued with psalm-like chants interwoven with elements of the Saint Wenceslas Chorale; the second movement features a march parodying the Nazi song Die Fahne Hoch. In March 1942, Haas's seventy-one-year-old father was also transported to Terezín, where he died on 13 May 1944.
The opera The Charlatan, based on Josef Winckler's novel Doctor Eisenbart, is a grand spectacle featuring thirty soloists, two choirs, dancers, and extras. The premiere took place on 2 April 1938 at the Brno Theatre on the City Walls. The overture and introductory aria Come, Come, People performed by Leo Marian Vodička, Ladislav Mlejnek, the State Opera Orchestra, conducted by Israel Yinon, 1998.
In the late 1930s, alongside The Charlatan, Haas produced several major works, including the six-movement Suite, Op. 14, derived from similar musical material as The Charlatan, String Quartet No. 3, Op. 15, the song cycle From Evening to Morning for soprano, tenor, female and male choir, and orchestra, Op. 16, and especially the Suite for Oboe and Piano, Op. 17, from 1939, reflecting the era's drama and emotionally quoting the Saint Wenceslas Chorale and the Hussite hymn Ye Who Are Warriors of God. Before his deportation to Terezín, he managed to complete Seven Songs in Folk Tone, Op. 18, in 1940.
Terezín 1941–1944
In Terezín, Pavel Haas initially performed hard physical labour but was later transferred to administrative duties, allowing him to return to composing to some extent. Only three of his Terezín compositions have survived: the men's choir Al s'fod (Do Not Lament, 1942), Study for Strings (1943), which had a staged premiere on 1 September 1944 under Karel Ančerl’s baton after the International Red Cross inspection and was also featured in the Nazi propaganda film Der Führer schenkt den Juden eine Stadt (The Führer Gives a City to the Jews) (the real premiere was on 13 September, a month before Haas and Ančerl were transported), and Four Songs on Chinese Poetry (1944), composed for Karel Berman, who premiered them in Terezín on 22 June 1944 with Rafael Schächter at the piano. The work was performed at least fifteen times. Haas chose translations from Bohumil Mathesius’s collection New Songs of Old China. The texts reflect Haas's longing for home, and the music again quotes the Saint Wenceslas Chorale, previously used in the Suite for Oboe and Piano, Op. 17 (1939), the unfinished symphony (1940–1941), and the men’s choir Al s'fod on David Shimoni's text, encouraging courage and perseverance. These pieces are nevertheless merely a fragment of his extensive Terezín compositions, which included around eight works. Parts for Study for Strings were saved by Karel Ančerl, used to reconstruct the score later by Haas’s pupil Lubomír Peduzzi. Lost Terezín works include the Fantasy on a Jewish Folk Song for Ledeč’s Quartet (Egon Ledeč was the concertmaster of the Czech Philharmonic, murdered in Auschwitz in October 1944), Partita in Old Style (first performed on 28 June 1944) for the pianist Bernard Kaff, who was also interned in Terezín and perished in Auschwitz on the same day as Pavel Haas, Variations for Piano and String Orchestra also for Bernard Kaff and Karel Ančerl's string orchestra, the three-movement Advent for mezzo-soprano, tenor, flute, clarinet, and string quartet, Fantasy for String Quartet, and Requiem (probably only a sketch) – funeral mass for the victims of the Terezín ghetto.
On 16 October 1944, Pavel Haas was deported with the so-called “transport of artists” to Auschwitz, where he perished in a gas chambers the following day, along with many other artists from Terezín, including his friend Bernard Kaff. He carried his compositions with him to Auschwitz in a backpack.
Pavel Haas composed Four Songs on Chinese Poetry in Terezín for Karel Berman, who premiered them there on 22 June 1944 with Rafael Schächter on piano. Christian Gerhaher (bass) and Gerold Huber (piano), 2007.
Musical Style
Pavel Haas underwent a compositional development like other members of his generation, moving from Romantic foundations through fascination with Art Nouveau and folk songs, a temporary passion for jazz and new technical media including radio and film, to a conscious and reflective search for his own forms. His compositional development was significantly influenced by three figures: Jan Kunc, Vilém Petrželka, and Leoš Janáček, from whom he adopted a method of creating larger structures from relatively brief musical ideas. From European composers, Igor Stravinsky and the members of Les Six (the Parisian Six) had the greatest impact on him. Although he was intrigued by Schoenberg's Harmonielehre (1911), he never abandoned a tonal foundation in his compositions. Haas's melodies stem from modality, inspired by both Moravian folk songs and synagogue chants. Hebrew melodies became another distinctive element of his compositions, forming an integral part of his expressive means from the mid-1920s. Jewish music motifs and melismas typical of synagogue chants appear in the meditative parts of his instrumental and vocal works. Notably, he used a melodic motif identical to a fragment of the Saint Wenceslas Chorale. His innate sense of rhythm was showcased through his incorporation of jazz music, with jazz influences evident especially in his instrumental compositions such as String Quartet No. 2, Op. 7 (1925), Wind Quintet, Op. 10 (1929), and Suite for Piano, Op. 13 (1935). Jazz elements are also present in the male chorus The Carnival, Op. 9 (1928–1929), and in the piano accompaniment of In the Bamboo Grove from the cycle Four Songs on Chinese Poetry (1944). Another hallmark of Haas's compositional style is polyrhythm, following the example of Igor Stravinsky. Additionally, his work is connected to the context of building the Czech musical tradition, to which Haas was particularly drawn due to his admiration for his mentor and teacher, Leoš Janáček. Despite being raised in a bilingual Czech-German environment, he expressed his genuine Czech identity by setting Czech poetry to music and drawing inspiration from Moravian folklore.
One of Haas's most compelling works, Suite for Oboe and Piano, Op. 17 (1939), reflects the dramatic events of the time. In it, the composer emotionally quotes the Saint Wenceslas Chorale and the Hussite hymn Ye Who Are Warriors of God. Vilém Veverka (oboe), Ensemble Opera Diversa, conducted by Robert Kružík. Orchestrated by Ondřej Kyas. LIVE recording.
