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Sten Hanson (1936-2013)


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Secret Connection (Radium 226.05/1985)

  1. Le vol d'Icare (1983). (Computer sound generated at the institute for electro-acoustic music in Sweden, Stockholm. Realized in the GMEB studio, Bourges.)
  2. Nightwoods III (1982). (Tape realized at the institute for electro-accoustic music in Sweden, Stockholm. Dror Feiler, Bo Petterson and Kjell-Ingen Stevensson, clarinets.)
  3. The birthplace of matter (1975). (Realized in the Fylkingen studio, Stockholm.)
  4. The New York Lament (1981). Recorded at the first performance at international Intermedia Foundation, New York, march 21, 1981.


""To me music is a matter of ideas rather than form and style. Music serves no practical purpose and is merely there to separate man from pig. There is no secret connection between pig and hog, but music is a secret connection between me and you, welcome!

The music on this record covers a wide range of musical practicies, from the use of sophisticated computer systems to thhe exclusive exploitation of the composer's own body. and, of course, the exploitation of his friends. The piece "Nightwood III" was composed at the request of Kjell-Inge Stenvensson, the fine and advanturous musician, who is also the first clarinet in the Swedish Radio Symphoncy. he nailed the composer to hiseasily mentioned interest in writing for three contrabass clarinets. The title Nightwoods refers to the night side of life, withs phantoms, ghosts and beasts, the source of so many myths and tales from the childhood of man.

""Le vol d'Icare" (Icarus's flight) is also somehow related to the same subject. If you want to see a story in the piece, it would be about a modern icarus, flying round the world over djungles, deserts and arctic ices, in a higher and higher spiral, passing the satelites and finally falling - not back on earth but back into the sun... However, other stories or none at all could be found in the same piece. The music contains everyting that any llistener might like to find. "The Birthplace of matter" came to me insired by a science fiction novel by Michael Moorcock, describing the center of the galaxy as a melting pot from where new matter constantly was created. The idea struck me as very poetic and musicla. Of, course, the piece has nothing to do with the book, which was awful anyway, only with that particular idea.

""The New York lament" was created in New York City on christmas day 1980, in a temperature of minus 38 centigrades. In a temperature like this, the francticness of the city becomes naked and unprotected and everyting reminds you of how tight the boundaries of human energy really are..."

-- Sten Hanson