Alois Hába has gone down in the history of 20th-century music as an experimenter. He studied in Vienna and Berlin under Franz Schreker, studied the tonal principles of non-European music, and developed his own theory of micro-intervallic music. However, his enthusiasm for microtonal music narrowed the perception of his creative legacy solely to its experimental component, although more than half of his works are compositions in the usual system of semitones. As he himself said, he was trying “to find the path from non-traditional training to artistically independent creative work with strongly altered harmony and melody in order to arrive at a personal means of expression following the line leading from Bach to Schumann and on to Reger.” He achieved this goal in the Sonata, op.3, for which he received much praise from Schreker, while Vítězslav Novák “with condescending humour called it a ‘sonata for three hands’”. Erwin Schulhoff premiered the Two Grotesque Pieces in 1922 in Berlin alongside compositions by Satie, Casella, and Stravinsky, and according to a critic, “Hába’s compositions made a far more authentic impression than much that surrounded them.” After the Toccata quasi una fantasia (1931), Hába returned to writing piano music one last time 40 years later at the end of his life with his Six Moods.

As a student in Vienna and Ghent, the pianist Miroslav Beinhauer focused on music of the 20th and 21st centuries. He was introduced to Hába through his compositions for sixth-tone harmonium (Beinhauer is the only player of this instrument, created by Hába), and he went on to study Hába’s complete works for “ordinary” piano as well. These works are little known and worthy of attention.