Claudio Landolt’s Vorderglärnisch. Bergporträt connects sound art with literary journalism. What finally became a composition of various field recordings, an accompanying poetry book (in German) and a performative reading film, started in 2019 with this question:
What does a mountain sound like?
To find answers to this question, Claudio Landolt ventured out to record over 100 hours of field recordings in and around the Vorderglärnisch, a mountain situated in the central Swiss Alps, and shaped these impressions into a new work. (Feel like listening to the sound composition while reading this? Go on, put on your headphones and hit the play button)
In over 30 recording trips from March to October 2019, Landolt explored various sound spheres surrounding the Vorderglärnisch mountain range in Glarus, using diverse techniques from air-borne and structure-borne recordings, to making electromagnetic fields and seismic data audible.
This versatile approach led to a heterogeneous sound collection which was then transformed into a riveting sonic voyage from the outside realm to the inside of the mountain.
The extensive «recherche sonore» served Claudio Landolt as a starting point to write poems. The conceptual texts, which investigate the sound of this mountain on a linguistic level, are published in the book «Nicht die Fülle / nicht Idylle / nicht der Berg» (Der gesunde Menschenversand, April 2021). These poems together with the sound composition, are symbiotic complements to each other. (Take a look into the book? Click on “Leseprobe” here.)
In fact, the intersection of sound and text is where we might grasp the cultural and sonic confluences within this colossal mountain in the most intense way possible. To get the full experience, headphones or a decent hifi-system are highly recommended.
Order limited cassette tape here
Listen to the sound composition and get infos on reading and listening events
In collaboration with https://menschenversand.ch