Sven-Åke Johansson: Konzert für 12 Traktoren

Konzert für 12 Traktoren

The concert has been performed at the following places:

2011, Copenhagen, Denmark

2009, Orust, Sweden

2004, Krems, Austria

2003, Mellanfjärd, Swede

2002, Brösarp, Sweden

2001, Perleberg, Germany

1999, Hermannshof, Germany

1999, Langen, Germany

1998, Mön, Denmark

1997, Illingen, Germany

1996, Höfgen-Kaditzsch, Germany

Enjoying the Sounds of Chuffing Divas

Johansson has had it figured for some time now that what counts isn't colorfully enameled metal and high horsepower under the hood,

but rather slow chugging and clanking. And so the good old tractors chugged and clanked for thirty-five minutes.

Sometimes together, sometimes also alone. There was, for example, a solo for Belarus. Just like real divas, the twelve monsters,

selected especially for their unique voices, let off ample steam, but the exhaust was no problem. The big barn doors remained

wide open for the entirety of the performance. The visitors once more enjoyed an experience of a special kind.

By the way, it was the first time that Johansson's motor tractors had the opportunity to chuff and clamor,

beat and stammer in a "concert hall" and not in the openness of a landscape.

From the Ruppiner Anzeiger, 10.5.1999

About working on the documentary film "När det Var Traktorkonsert i Brösarp"

On a peaceful summer evening in 2002 in the small village of Brösarp in Scania, southern Sweden,

we filmed the performance of Sven-Åke Johansson's work Konzert für 12 Traktoren, conducted by the composer.

Twelve two- and three-cylinder tractors from the 1950s and 60s are positioned in a semi-circle at a fruit plantation

and the sounds of bells ringing can be heard. Before an enthusiastic audience of 1,000, the old tractors start

their engines and press the gas pedals while idling. They race, purr, play, sing in the sunset. This landscape in

Brösarp is a cultural landscape. With plow, horse, and tractor, it has been created by people. The efforts of generations

can be read therein. A cultural landscape is a narrative of the work of people, of their villages and material conditions.

Forty and fifty years old, the tractors in Johansson's work are already stories in themselves, and the audience gazes

on this evening over a landscape that will soon be a sparsely populated area where not a tractor plows and not a cow grazes.

One could thus experience the tractor concert as requiem and lament for a region on its way to disappearing.

The tractors sing of a time that has escaped. But if there is no memory, then there is no future. As such, the

Konzert für 12 Traktoren is also a work as laudation of work. By the way: if you project a Nuffield 342

faster than light, your vision goes black.

EBBE GILBE