Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Johann Sebastian Bach's flute sonatas are chamber music repertoire of rare quality. The six sonatas are all very different from one another in both style and character, and they provide a musical material to explore in depth, to live with and to discover new elements to over a whole lifetime. It has taken a certain amount of courage for these three young musicians at an early stage in their careers to choose to record this particularly well-known repertoire. Their aim with this recording has been to play as they, at this point in their lives, feel that the music must be played. They want each moment, tone or phrase to exhibit complete conviction in it's interpretation, as a result of their ensemble's performance, based on impulses and inspiration between the musicians.

Classical Music

Laura Netzel and Valborg Aulin are among the group of Swedish female composers who began to be talked about on the public music scene towards the end of the 19th century. Both Laura Netzel and Valborg Aulin were accomplished pianists, who showed extraordinary musical talent from an early age. But they followed substantially different paths to their d�but as composer. Laura Netzel was 35 when a couple of her pieces for ladies' chorus appeared in a programme for the New Harmonic Society at a concert in Stockholm in 1874. Valborg Aulin, on the other hand, was only 19 when several songs of hers were performed at one of the student concerts at the academy of music in 1879. With her experienced technique and artistic and accurate interpretation, Lucia Negro has long been considered one of Sweden's foremost pianists, and brilliantly interprets the works of these groundbreaking female composers.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

The Sonorous Lyre - a reference to the harp-like instrument of Classical Antiquity - takes the shape of the very resonant double-headed lute, a popular instrument frequently depicted by 17th-century Dutch and English painters. It is an instrument that is seldom heard today, sadly neglected in the lute renaissance of the 20th century. Swedish lutenist Anders Ericson has, for this recording, uncovered exciting original music, here presented for the first time to a modern audience. Born in Karlsborg, Sweden in 1976, Anders Ericson started playing electric and classical guitar at the age of eight. By the time he had reached eighteen he was playing the baroque lute and theorbo, and went to study at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm and the College of Music in Malmo graduating in 2002. Active as a continuo player and soloist, Anders has performed in major concert halls and opera houses in 25 countries all over the world, including the Wigmore Hall, Th�atre des Champs-�lys�es and Tokyo International Forum. Anders is a member of the Drottningholm Baroque Ensemble and Goteborg Baroque.

�ke Udd�n (1903-1987) was a composer and professor of harmony and counterpoint at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. During the 1920s, he studied at the Paris Conservatory and included Caussade and Tournemire among his teachers. He was greatly inspired by Ravel and "Les Six". The basic characteristics of Udd�n's compositions, mostly for chamber and vocal music, come from the French role models on which his education was based. A balanced, sober and technically-driven tonal language therefore characterizes his work, where linear playing and harmony are colored by impressionistic impulses. Uppsala Chamber Soloists have taken on this previously seldom-performed repertoire with enormous enthusiasm. With the release of this album, it achieves it's major breakthrough. The Uppsala Chamber Orchestra - regarded by many as one of the finest chamber orchestras in Sweden - is part of Musik i Uppland, the county musical foundation. The Uppsala Chamber Orchestra is characterized by it's flexibility in various styles, from early baroque to contemporary music, and it's exquisite orchestral sound, both warm and lustrous. The orchestra includes a number of soloists who ensure it's high quality.

The Uppsala Chamber Soloists are one of Sweden’s most eminent string ensembles, delving into Baroque, Viennese Classical, Romantic or new music, always with the same total control and stylistic sense. Just as the name implies, they are both chamber musicians and soloists.

Dear body, "In my silence, There's a heartbeat, Surrounded by love. Let's play, Dear body, Surrendering, I am not broken." You are everything, all that we have. You are life, and through you the music is channeled and takes shape. I ask you to keep playing and singing for as long as I exist. (annasara) Through the album's seven tracks, the titles of which together form a complete text, the music on Dear Body becomes an entire story, like the performance of a musical drama for which the stage has not yet been set. The different moods and soundscapes of the songs propel the story forward, painting a complex picture of pain interspersed with playful simplicity and quiet poetry. It is the love of music, and of making music, that is the driving force here, leading to humility and love for the body. This is what the whole album is about. The impressionistic sounds, and the simple yet impactful arrangements, are recognizable from previous albums. Harmonies and instrumentation from classical music are transferred to the singer songwriter form in which Annasara's clear and intimate voice can be heard on four tracks. The last track includes friend and tenor Martin Vanberg. The other tracks are completely instrumental and, in addition to piano and violin played by Annasara herself, we also hear Amelia Jakobsson on cello, Johan Bridger on marimba and Simon Peterson on double bass. All tracks share a sense of chamber music and an organic sound with songlike phrasings and dynamics. All music has been written and arranged by Annasara Lundgren. In the title track Dear Body, two themes from the Sibelius Violin Concerto are first woven into the song's verse and chorus, before being heard instrumentally toward the end.

This collaboration started out with an idea of somehow combining the fields of classical contemporary music and contemporary jazz improvisation, creating a bridge between the musical worlds. The resulting album, All in Twilight, is driven by a deep admiration for the original music and its expressive potential. Toru Takemitsu´s guitar suite All in Twilight with its richness and wide musical spectrum, Erland von Koch’s Utanmyra-variationer based on a Swedish folk music tune, the explosive guitar piece Fuoco by French composer Roland Dyens and Thin Places, a new composition written for the duo by Stefan Klaverdal.

Maria Lithell Flygh writes: “It’s hard to pinpoint what makes my heart sing when I read a poem, but that’s what it takes to get me composing. Another source of inspiration is to picture the musicians and singers who will be performing the piece, which is the case for the material on this album. The pandemic brought certain things home to us: what we truly long for. Encounters with other people, experiencing music and other art forms in groups, having good health, being together. While reading Nya dikter by Lotta Lotass, I realized that an undercurrent of longing ran throughout the poems. The images of chained circus elephants she chose to include in her collection reinforced this feeling and made me want to create music that combined the sense of longing and melancholy present in Swedish folk music with my own, more contemporary, expression.”

Dear body, “In my silence, There’s a heartbeat, Surrounded by love. Let’s play, Dear body, Surrendering, I am not broken.” You are everything, all that we have. You are life, and through you the music is channeled and takes shape. I ask you to keep playing and singing for as long as I exist. (Annasara)

Through the album’s seven tracks, the titles of which together form a complete text, the music on Dear Body becomes an entire story, like the performance of a musical drama for which the stage has not yet been set. The different moods and soundscapes of the songs propel the story forward, painting a complex picture of pain interspersed with playful simplicity and quiet poetry. It is the love of music, and of making music, that is the driving force here, leading to humility and love for the body. This is what the whole album is about.

The impressionistic sounds, and the simple yet impactful arrangements, are recognizable from previous albums. Harmonies and instrumentation from classical music are transferred to the singer songwriter form in which Annasara’s clear and intimate voice can be heard on four tracks. The last track includes friend and tenor Martin Vanberg. The other tracks are completely instrumental and, in addition to piano and violin played by Annasara herself, we also hear Amelia Jakobsson on cello, Johan Bridger on marimba and Simon Peterson on double bass. All tracks share a sense of chamber music and an organic sound with songlike phrasings and dynamics. All music has been written and arranged by Annasara Lundgren. In the title track "Dear Body," two themes from the Sibelius Violin Concerto are first woven into the song’s verse and chorus, before being heard instrumentally toward the end.

An unusual lute recital makes for a rewarding listen.

Anders Ericson’s excellent liner notes warn that the French baroque lute tradition may not be as instantly likable as the snappy, melodic songs of a John Dowland. That’s true, and it’s also true that these works are never as ‘developed’ or downright snappy as the composers who came a generation or two later (like Silvius Weiss). But I really had no trouble genuinely liking this music, let alone Ericson’s tender, evocative playing.

The French composers of the mid-1600s were most interested in expanding the range and technical ability of the lute, dabbling especially in a variety of new tunings. Catchy tunes and lyrical hooks were not as important to them as creating new textures, sounds, and techniques. The ultimate product would be a more closely unified “French school” of lute playing, but the works here are from the experimental period before that, a period in which Ericson is apparently a specialist.

The works here are all miniatures (topping out at 4 minutes) yoked not really into suites but groupings: from Jacques Gallot, for instance, we get a group of “Pieces in A minor.” Gallot is joined by François Dufaut, Jean Mercure, and Germain Plinel, all of whom are unknown to me but all of whom receive engagingly colorful biographies in Ericson’s liner notes, except Mercure, about whom little is known except that he worked at the English court. Dufaut’s pieces exhibit admirable mastery with their compact forms, while Gallot prefers a slightly greater measure of freedom, structurally and harmonically. Pinel, who gets the most time of the four, was lutenist to Louis XIV and indulged more than the other three in difficult fast passages and structural quirks - like the way the prelude seems to end hanging in midair. Ericson suggests that he might have been an influence on Couperin.

Anders Ericson is an interesting figure on his own. This, his debut lute album, demonstrates technical mastery of the instrument - though he says, modestly, that the music is not all that hard once you get past the novel tunings - and a sensitive touch which belies the claim, repeated but not endorsed in the notes, that this music is hard to listen to. Those notes are an excellent guide, too, and a sign of the performer’s scholarship. Which makes it all the more interesting that Ericson’s “day job” is as a heavy metal guitarist. He’s recorded three albums with a progressive metal supergroup called Beyond Twilight. Metal is not really my thing, but I hope that this side of Ericson’s career will be as fruitful as that one is. While it may be true that this music will not grab listeners unacclimated to the lute as immediately as Dowland or Bach might, for those of us who enjoy or love the instrument the recital will prove a treasure. I hope there is more to come.

-- Brian Reinhart, MusicWeb International

Kristine West uses her Swedish folk music roots to take on baroque and contemporary music in a free and open-minded way. This debut album has been characterized as having easiness and aim to create an experience of presence - with extreme conviction. West wanted to encourage her listeners to interpret the music through their own experience and to constantly reconsider the music. This allows her music to be constantly alive with a sense of freedom.

Adolf Fredrik Lindblad was one of nineteenth-century Sweden's most prominent composers. However, over the years his music for piano has been overshadowed by his many songs and choral compositions. Lindblad wrote some sixty pieces for piano, but the majority still only exist in manuscript. A couple of years ago, Oscar Ekberg decided to study Lindblad's entire piano oeuvre, and this is the result: the very first recorded compilation of Lindblad's piano music. The recording consists of a selection of character pieces and 'Songs without words'. The short character piece was Lindblad's preferred form, and he was clearly a master of this brief evocation of mood. Oskar Ekberg grew up in Sweden where he began studying piano at age six. After studying at the School of Music in Gothenberg, he continued post-graduate studies at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. In 2003, he graduated and made his official debut with a performance of Prokofiev's second piano concerto with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. In addition to his solo career, Oskar dedicates considerable time to the performance of chamber music, and as an orchestral pianist in the leading Swedish ensembles.