Hania Rani‘s score for Sentimental Value is a tender modern classical meditation that can be acknowledged as a freestanding album.
Release date: January 30, 2026 | Gondwana Records | Instagram | Website | Bandcamp
I first discovered Hania Rani through her 2023 piano day performance from ARTE Concert. Swimming in a peninsula of pianos, keyboards, and synthesizers, the performance captured mesmerizing compositions rooted in minimalism and pulling from neoclassical and ambient that have marked Rani’s evolving musical palette. Though not bound by these genres, she has proven to many to be an exceptional artist amongst this backdrop, not only through her solo and collaborative efforts, but through her film and theater compositions alike.
Hania has always communicated her penchant for the sentimental. Whether it be her 2023 album Ghosts which evokes our foreign familiarity of the beyond, or through Nostalgia, which was released in 2024. The album focuses around her revisiting a concert studio in Warsaw, Poland, where some of her first recordings were created. She aimed to breathe life into the invaluable weight of that building, along with her longstanding connection to Polish radio throughout her life that helped shape her musical influence. To me, it is no surprise she was invited to score Sentimental Value, a drama film focused not only on the generations of familial members but on the home they have all come to share.
Film scores are often interpreted as a complementary piece through the movie it conceptually grew out of, which can have an unintended depreciating return for the music as a standalone work. With Sentimental Value, Hania Rani was only given a script of the film at the time of recording the music. This allows a greater freedom of expression for a composer who might feel anchored by an early edit of the film or through visual storyboards to help shape the narrative. She was able to discuss the key themes of the characters and importance of the house with the director, and was able to create meditative reflections on the many things we all hold close to our hearts. The main motif presented in “Sentimental Value” is sentient, swirling through flute and clarinet that elicit the passing of time with their wandering melodies.
The album description provides more details on Hania’s process of conceptualization:
‘Intriguingly Hania worked on the score for Sentimental Value without an edit in hand; instead, she was given a carefully written script and the freedom of her own substantial imagination. The story told in the film oscillates around three characters and the motionless presence of the house, yet the relationships between all these personalities are not fixed, but in progress.’
This also allows a greater freedom of expression to the listener, which enables a more open-ended experience that instrumental music often provides. Sentimental value is a shared feeling across the sum of humanity, and we have all come to keep items or memories that have gained a wealth of significance over time. What do you hold close? What will you never forget? These are just a few questions invoked by the pensive nature of the music, presented in a more tranquil style compared to Hania’s other works.
There are softer flourishes through its quieter moments, a subtlety that most scores do not consistently possess. “Childlike” is a lively yet subdued piece with rising and collapsing piano arpeggios, showcasing the unguided whimsy of a period of time we all cherish. The music will not ‘spoil’ the movie for anyone who hasn’t seen it, because the tonal shifts are just as minute as the emotions the characters convey in the film.
Beyond the more philosophical nature of the recording of Sentimental Value, Hania also was able to visit the house in Oslo which serves as the centerpiece for the story to unfold. She was able to record both piano and field recordings within those walls, grounded to the Earth’s soil but existing outside of space and time entirely. The house is as notable a character as the people who inhabit it, and it offered a conceptual foundation for the score alongside the script. The house is now a notable character in the music, providing an ambient landscape for songs like “Gustav” to deepen its heavier moods.
‘…Hania went to Oslo and spent a couple of days in the main film location (the family home in Oslo) with her sound engineer, Agata Dankowska… They made field recordings in the building, capturing the sounds of objects and furniture found in the apartment, and they also managed to record a couple of piano pieces. The house plays a significant role in the story, silently witnessing the tangled trajectories of its residents.’
Overall, the nature of the recording and surrounding discussions about the music lends a closer relationship to how artists approach concept albums over a true film score. It is why I have come to enjoy it outside of its companion piece, and why I recommend it for anyone who hasn’t yet experienced Hania Rani’s work or the film. It is also why I view it as a companion piece to life, allowing an intimate, mellow counterpart to my thinking, writing, or enjoyment of a somber winter morning. “Riksarkivet” and “Speaking to the Past” are some of my favorite moments on here for their standalone piano pieces amongst the ambient undertones the rest of the album provides. One notable exception from the score, however, is Hania’s vocals. They are understandably absent here, but still missed from a fan of her previous inclusions across her discography.
We have seen more and more artists step into composing roles, some notable additions being Nala Sinephro’s masterwork of ambient jazz supporting The Smashing Machine, or even more recently with Charli XCX and Wuthering Heights. While this is not new, the attention around the collaborations and music outside of the film are reaching wider audiences. Hania Rani’s score for Sentimental Value will be placed high on the list of many notable artist composers branching out and pushing themselves creatively in this way. It presents a direct, immediate emotional draw alongside her growing catalogue of work, and the independence of its creation provides a multi-faceted lens for listeners to enjoy.
