Hans-Joachim Hespos

Who is Hans-Joachim Hespos?

Hans-Joachim Hespos is a German composer of avant-garde music. He was born in Emden.

Since für Cello solo, he has composed in all genres, including many pieces for unaccompanied solo instruments and theatre works. He has always remained outside of the mainstream and has never been associated with any of the many movements in postwar European music, though he did attend summer courses at Darmstadt in the 1980s. Today, Hespos is still relatively unknown in the United States.

Even by the standards of the European avant-garde, Hespos' music usually is quite extreme and unconventional. In his many pieces for solo instruments, Hespos pushes instruments to their timbral limits, employing extended techniques and other effects to create unusual sounds. He frequently writes for less-common instruments, such as cimbalon or musical saw. He even calls for extreme stage techniques in his theatre works—the famous piece Seiltanz requires an actor to break his way out of a metal cage by means of a welding torch.