Reports Choral Works By Perttu Haapanen

Playful and with an acute ear for the full range of possibilities of the human voice, Perttu Haapanen has established himself as one of the most exploratory and intellectually curious composers of vocal music active in the Nordic countries. His output includes works for a wide variety of musical formations, but the human voice is central to much of it. He combines a deep understanding of traditional choral sonority with a modernist fascination for extended techniques and structural rigour and a post-modern interest in the deconstruction of text. In his writing, Haapanen examines the full range of sound production available using the human vocal apparatus. We hear singing, of course, but also whispering, speaking, shouting, Sprechgesang, breathing sounds, whistling, lip smacks, tongue clicks, grunting as well as nasal tone and falsetto.