Hanne Darboven was born in 1941 in Germany. She grew up in south Hamburg and studied as a pianist briefly before switching to study art at the Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg. Best known for her large scale minimalist installations consisting of handwritten tables and numbers, Darboven experimented with musical arrangements and photographs in her displays culminating in “Mathematical Music” A series of mathematically scored movements reaching up to 100 minutes long. Numbers were assigned sounds that were then adapted into performable compositions for organ, double bass, harpsichord, string quartet and chamber orchestra. She translated her additive concept of dates into musical scores where the digit 1 equals the note E, 2 for F, 3 for G and so on. Darboven said “My systems are numeric concepts that work according to the laws of progression and/or reduction in the manner of a musical theme with variations.

An extract of the calculations that went into generating the musical score for Opus 17a written for kontrabass.

I was first made aware of Hanne Darboven when listening to Louise Marshall talk about her art and how Darboven made the transition from classically trained musician to conceptual artist. This is significant to me as I’m from a classically trained musical background so found it interesting to see how her art has been influenced by her past musical education.