HANNA HARTMAN

Having developed her very own language, the Swedish sound artist Hanna Hartman creates compositions that are exclusively made up from authentic sounds which she has recorded around the world. Sounds are taken out of their original context and thus perceived in their purity. Hanna Hartman seeks to reveal hidden correspondences between the most diverse auditive impressions, and in new constellations she creates extraordinary worlds of sound.

The new album is built out of four shorter pieces composed during 2003-2006. Compared to the large compositions of her earlier albums this music shows another side of Hanna Hartman's work. The album opens with "Att fälla grova träd är förkippat med risker" (The felling of tall trees entails danger.) that was commissioned by Rikskonserter and which received several prizes, first and foremost the prestigious Karl Sczuka Prize in 2005. Hanna Hartman is also working with installations and sound performances and is currently Composer in Residence at Sveriges Radio 2007–2008.

The cd is made in co-operation with EMS, Rikskonserter, and Reviews of "Att fälla grova träd är förknippat med risker".

"Hanna Hartman's highly concentrated sound composition is determined by the two motifs hinted at in the title of felling and falling. The presentation of the material, as if through an aural magnifying glass, makes the sounds loose their unambiguous indentifiability; they become ambiguous, begin to shimmer and, released from their semantic context, develop a musical life of their own. The piece acquires its cohesion through an extreme economy of structure: the aperiodic sequences are attached one to the other in hard cuts with precisely measured breaks. An intense, physically demanding sound experience which continually tests the listener's aural perception and the clarity of which remains unsettling."

Jury statement Karl Sczuka Prize 2005

"Eines der schönsten Stücke des Festival schrieb Hanna Hartman mit "Att fälla grova träd är förknippat med risker". Die in Berlin lebende Komponistin arbeitet mit konkreten und unbehandelten Klängen und geht mit ihrem Material äußerst ökonomisch um. Das wirklich Erstaunliche an diesen Werken ist aber die Schlechthinnigkeit der Klänge. Hartman nimmt ihr Material mit seltener Sorgfalt auf, wodurch Klangqualität und -quelle auf seltsame Weise auseinander fallen; das Geräusch sich in einen Apfel senkender Zähne wird dann zum Klang des Bisses schlechthin, wogegen die Zähne und der Apfel vollkommen hinter dem Biß verschwinden. So ensteht eine Musik, die zwar durchaus mit Bedeutung aufgeladen ist, die aber die Deixis des Konkreten Klangs abstrahierenderweise ausradiert.” Bjorn Gottstein, Musiktexte 104