Review of Christine Blanken: Franz Schuberts »Lazarus « und das Wiener Oratorium zu Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts, Schubert: Perspektiven – Studien I. (vyd. Hans-Joachim Hinrichsen a Till Gerrit Weidelich), Franz Steiner Verlag, Wiesbaden – Stuttgart 2002, 379 s.
Based on sources, this article sums up the pioneering period of assertion of micro interval music, and Alois Hába‘s direct participation in the activities of the music avant-garde between the two World Wars. The article covers the period 1923–1946, and is extended by a brief supplement dealing with the post-war fate of Hába’s experiment. The article is based mainly on material from Alois Hába‘s estate, deposited in the National Museum-Czech Music Museum, Prague, in which survives copious correspondence and other material, documenting this particular segment of the history of Czech modern music. Research focused on Hába’s co-operation with the August Förster piano-making firm from Löbau, in Saxony, who had a filial in Georgswalde (today‘s Jifiíkov), in Northern Bohemia, and, according to Hába’s design, built several quarter-tone keyboard instruments. Supported by and in co-operation with this firm, Hába launched a number of promotional quartertone music concerts, where he was joined, in the role of pianist, by the composer Erwin Schulhoff.