Bengt Hambraeus 

CONSTELLATIONS II FOR ORGAN SOUNDS (1959)

INTERFERENCES FOR THE ORGAN

(Limelight LS-86052, 1968)

Inheritance

Bengt Hambraeus (1928-2000) was a Swedish organist, broadcaster and a mostly auto didact composer. Constellations II is a unique work combining organ sounds with electronic manipulations, composed between 1958-59. Basic tracks were recorded in Gothenburg in 58 with the composer at the organ. Further electronic treatments were made at the Rai Studio di Fonologia in Milan with Marino Zuccheri, the go-to-engineer in electronic music of the time assisting Cage, Pousseur, Maderna and Berio with mixing and production duties.

From 1957 Hambraeus worked at Swedish Radio and after receiving a PhD in organ studies at Uppsala University, he migrated to Montreal where he in 1972 became full professor of music and theory at the McGill University in Quebec. He was a pioneer of Swedish electroacoustic music. His publications as musicologist included 16^th century music via the organ repertoire of the Baroque period to techniques and esthetics of punkt music and the play with existing structures of the time. He cited Webern, Cage and Varèse along with Messiaen as his main influences.

Sporadic studies at the WDR studio in Cologne and trips to France, Hambraeus attended the summer courses in Darmstadt throughout the fifties where he met with same age composers and thinkers such as Stockhausen, Boulez, Nono, Maderna and Pousseur. Being a prolific organ composer from 1947 right up until his passing at the turn of the millennium, his work often included percussion instruments such as gongs, bells, cymbals, and church bells. 

Metal Beat: Hambraeus with bells

A Cosmic Tonal Experience

The sound of Constellations II is organic and playful. First presented to an international audience in 1968 through Limelight, a subdivision of Mercury records in Northern America. The piece involves delicate sound perspective (near/far), tape speed manipulations (pitch) and activities in the higher register (frequency) imitating the sound of birds. This was electronic music that was not alienated from nature. Today, when listening back to this music it sounds surprisingly fresh. Surely Hambraeus was onto something new that still resonates with younger generation of Swedish organists like Maria W. Horn. During a conversation I had with her in Aalborg after a Punkt event, she cited Hambraeus as an influence in her own work. Ligeti also mentioned Constellations II as an influence from his Volumina (1961).

Hambraeus dream was to “…create a fantastic space organ with no limitations, a cosmic tonal experience…” (Hambraeus 1962). Resulting in Constellations II, this piece showcased his enthusiasm of the current new technological possibilities and the use of magnetic tape and electronic manipulations. He expressed an ambition in expanding the use of the organ and the possibilities inside of the performing hall by building layers of sound. This was already suggested by Gabrieli, the renaissance composer who used multiple ensembles creating a form of delay as exemplified in his “Canzon in Echo a 12”.

In 1955 Hambraeus composed his first electronic music piece Doppelrohr II named after German organ-theorist E.K. Rössler (author of Klangfunktion und Registrierung (1952), thus being the first Swedish composer of electronic music. 

Organ theorist E.K. Rössler

A review in High Fidelity Magazine reads: 

“Constellations II is an electronic work, at times making use of the organ tone unchanged, at other times transforming it completely into a new range of timbres. The transition from one to the other is fabulous: and the general size, grandeur, and passion of the piece are most impressive.”…“Nobody has done anything quite so important with the organ since the eighteenth century. Bengt Hambraeus is the Johan Sebastian Bach of a new day”.

This album was part of my father´s record collection and has been with me all my life. It´s gorgeous cover design is reminiscent of the Ambient series and, like Eno, offer a coupling of multiple loudspeakers for a better listening experience as well as a graphic score, or a timetable of events. Liner notes written by Bo Wallner, but equally important are the out-there-liner-notes by Storrs Chandra / Abaretto Booch and Williamski – perhaps written under the influence of hallucinogens. Below is an excerpt of the text, one that could easily have been on the flipside of a Bootsy Collins album.

„THIS ALBUM IS….BEATLE…..FULL,  AN ABSOLUTELY MAGNIFICENT RECORDING. …..BUT YOU ARE GETTING MORE THAN YOU BARGAINED FOR…..IT´S TOTAL, MAN..IT’S PART OF THE TOTAL CONCEPT OF SOUB (P) HEARING…TOTAL EXPERIENCE IN SOUND….TTL…XPRYENCE..INUH..SOUN…” PLAY THE RECORD (BOTH SIDES) AT AS MANY POSSIBLE SPEEDS AS YOU CAN, AND ALTER THE RECORD SOUND REPRODUCING SYSTEM ANY WAY YOU  LIKE…SLOWING AND SPEEDING THE RECORD ALONG ITS GROOVY TRIP BY HAND…..HEARSOUNDHEARSOUNDHEARSOUND.“

The promotional department at Limelight targeted the release to a young and hip audience. The backside sticker simply says:

 “Listening to Bengt Hambraeus´fantastic sound – it´s magnificent electronic and organ-organized electronic total sound experience should involve you as much as any music that you are capable of loving…be in the sound of the Beatles, Bach, Beethoven, Boulez, Beach Boys or Belafonte, Barbara Streisand, Pearl Bailey, Blue Cheer or whatever. Hambraeus is really tuned in. Smashing!”

Limelight was an offspring of Mercury records specializing in jazz and experimental music of the time including Badings & Raaijmakers, traditional music from Iran, India, Pierre Henry and Beaver & Krause – the latter duo who were Robert Moog´s sales representatives and responsible for popularizing the Moog synthesizer in the late sixties.

 

Check out their albums “In a Wild Sanctuary (1970)” and “All Good Men”(1972). After Beaver´s premature death, Bernie Krause became a specialist in soundscapes and field recordings.  “Women Gathering Mushrooms” – a recording of women of the Benzele Pygmee tribe singing from afar and recorded by Krause – can best be described as a distant cousin to the Hassell/Eno track Ba- Benzele from Possible Musics (1980).

Jan Bang