The Swedish pianist Lars Sellergren (1927-2008) studied with Olof Wibergh in Stockholm 1946-1952 and Bruno Seidlhofer in Vienna 1952-1954. In 1952 he received the Jenny Lind Award and also made his d�but as a pianist. He was an experienced piano pedagogue, teaching at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm from 1963 to 1993, becoming a titular professor in 1982. With violinist Leo Berlin and cellist �ke Olofsson he founded the Stockholm Trio (1957-1986). From 1950 to 1967 he gave regular concerts including a very large number of radio and TV broadcasts. He was active in musicians' professional organizations and in politics, among them as a member of the Stockholm County Council and on the board of Rikskonserter [the Swedish Concert Institute]. He took up broadcasting again in 1975 and returned to the concert platform. Lars Sellergren made his last radio recording in 1999 (Bach's Das Wohltemperierte Klavier), and in 2007 he held a Master class at the �rebro University College of Music entitled "Med musiken i centrum - om pianospelets hemligheter" ["Centered on the music - about the secrets of piano playing"].

The present release features a selection of Lieder by composer Joachim Raff. "Despite the abundance and the high quality of Joachim Raff's songs, this part of his composition is little known and documented - in contrast to his instrumental works, which are recorded several times. Raff's songwriting is still hardly a subject of music-historical research. We very much hope and wish that this recording, which consists exclusively of premieres, can interest somebody in Raff's songs - so that we more often can find them in concerts!" (Hedayet Jonas Djeddikar & Johannes Wedeking)

This new release features a recording from the world premiere performance of the opera in Metzingen Stadthalle, Bad Urach, Germany, October 4th, 2002. The opera is set in Venice in 1727. In the house of Marcello, a musician and poet, two of his pupils Rosana and Faustina wait for their teacher who is late for their singing lesson. Marcello at last arrives, apologizes, and announces that instead of their lessons he wants them to sing for a guest of his, the famous composer Adolph Hasse, from Germany. Rosana sings first: a sad song about unrequited love. Hasse praises her warmly for singing from the heart, whereas Marcello is just puzzled by her sudden ability to find the correct tone. Faustina immediately recognizes that Rosana is singing about her love for Marcello and is irritated that he cannot see it himself. She then sings a joyful song about a nightingale, which leaves both Hasse and Marcello captivated. Hasse expresses his profound admiration for Marcello and she invites him to accompany her to a party that evening. Faustina is preparing for the evening and her thoughts turn to Hasse, and she realizes that she loves him. Hasse has quietly arrived and, overhearing her soliloquy, immediately tells Faustina that he has fallen in love with her too. Marcello, masked, arrives and stands outside Faustina’s rooms, consumed with love for her and intending to sing her a serenade. He hears the gondola bearing Faustina and Hasse approaching, and jealously listens to their loving conversation. Hiding while they enter her apartment, he vows revenge on Hasse. Marcello wants to pick a quarrel and both men draw their swords. Faustina, who has heard the commotion outside, opens her balcony window, sees the events below and collapses with a scream. Hasse leaves, telling Marcello that he may keep his life as a pledge of their friendship…

Richard Strauss’ Salome, adapted from the play by Oscar Wilde, first premiered on December 9th, 1905. The opera shocked audiences due to its themes which blend the violent and erotic within a Christian biblical setting. It centers around the death of John the Baptist and is famous for its ‘Dance of the Seven Veils’. Laila Andersson-Palme was born in 1941 and moved to Stockholm in 1960. She was immediately accepted in the solo class at the Royal College of Music and began to perform in small roles at the Opera. After a student concert in 1963 where she sang Violetta’s aria in La Traviata at the Royal Opera House, she was directly engaged on a scholarship. Eventually her voice developed in a dramatic direction. Following a hugely successful career often singing Richard Strauss and Richard Wagner, in various roles, in 1985 she was appointed Court singer in 1985 and was elected in 1997as member no. 913 of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music.

In Sweden Carl Michael Bellman (1740–1795) hardly requires any introduction. He is regarded as Sweden’s foremost national poet. Even children at school learn several of his songs. In Fredman’s Epistles, Bellman uses the New Testament as a basis. The drunkard, former royal watchmaker Jean Fredman has the leading role as a kind of a contemporary St. Paul sending epistles to the persistent drinkers at Stockholm’s taverns. Fredman preaches that we should make the most of the moment. The early epistles have many traits of parodying the Bible. The personage in Fredman’s Epistlar is large. Most of them have been identified as real people in Stockholm, such as Fredrik Movitz, Eric Nordström and Lorenz Mollberg. The role model of Ulla Winblad was Maja Christina Kiellström-Winblad. The performers have also chosen to include five youth poems, several of them never issued before. Stina Hellberg Agback, harp, Jonas Isaksson, guitar and lute and Andreas Nyberg, violin, have answered for the varied accompaniment.

The minstrel Carlo Broschi has hidden his sister Casilda in a convent to protect her from the machinations of the clergy who wish to make a present of her for King Ferdinand VI. In Carlo's opinion, she is in love with an unknown cavalier - likewise too highborn to have any lawful intentions toward her. Carlo happens upon the King, who is possessed by melancholy and succeeds in cheering him with a song (It was, in fact, Ferdinand's predecessor Philip V, for whom Farinelli was engaged as a music therapist). As a reward, he is invited to the court, where he encounters his sister's lover, Raphael d'Estuniga. Raphael is so despondent over his thwarted passion that he is ready to sell his soul, so Carlo introduces himself as Satan, ready to lend aid for half of his takings. Casilda appeals to Carlo for protection; she has been kidnapped by the priests and brought to the king, who, only recently having recovered his sanity, takes her for a ghost. Carlo leaves to speak with the queen (Louise-Rosalie Lefebvre created this role Louise-Rosalie Lefebvre) and leaves the lovers alone. Raphael, who has obtained an office due to Carlo's influence and has had uncommon luck at gambling, is so confident of supernatural aid that he is nonplussed at the king's entrance, even when the latter orders his death. Carlo attempts to smooth things over by telling the king Raphael is her husband, but the Grand Inquisitor exposes the fabrication, enraging the king against Carlo as well. Things can only be put right by Carlo's revealing all and reminding the king that the queen still suspects nothing. Carlo, who has never hesitated to claim his 50%, tells his future brother-in-law that his share will be Casilda's happiness this time.

Dan Andersson died at the age of 32 in 1920, more than 100 years ago. His poetry is still relevant and beloved. Many can still recite his poems and sing many of the compositions. He is one of Sweden's most important poets, a romantic working-class poet who gave voice to the poor in the country, depicted areas and conditions in Sweden that had hardly been illuminated before. One of the great strengths of his poetry is that it is universal, human and beautiful. Nature, love and the conditions of life play the biggest role.

Die Walkure is the second of the four music dramas that constitute Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. The story of Die Walkure is based on the Norse mythology told in the Volsunga saga and the Poetic Edda. In this version, the Volsung twins Sieglinde and Siegmund, separated in childhood, meet and fall in love. This union angers the gods, who demand that Siegmund must die. Sieglinde and the couple's unborn child are saved by the defiant actions of Wotan's daughter, the title character, Valkyrie Brunnhilde, who as a result faces the gods' retribution.

Peter Lindroth, born 1950 in Norrköping and lives in Stockholm. He started playing the piano as a 9-year-old. Since then, everything has been about music. His long career as a musician started when he joined a pop group in 1965. With some interruptions for touring he studied at music colleges in Gothenburg and Stockholm 1973–1979. During the following 10 years, he freelanced as a keyboard player and producer whilst alternating with composition studies for Sven-David Sandström. In 1989, he returned to the Stockholm Royal College of Music for a diploma course in composition. The list of works includes chamber music, music for voice/s and orchestral music.

Both during my studies and my years as an active violinist, works for violin solo have been of central importance to me. When I studied with Louis Persinger in New York, the focus was on the solo repertoire. He was one of the most prominent violinists and pedagogues of his time, and the works by Eugène Ysaÿe (1858–1931) and Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953) on this album, I got to know through him. I performed Johan Helmich Roman’s (1694–1758) B Minor Assaggio for the first time in 1979 in Haraldsmåla outside the city Kalmar when a memorial plaque for him was to be unveiled. In this village he lived the last years of his life. I discovered the sonata for violin solo by Moses Pergament mostly by chance when I was browsing among the music shelves of a music store in Stockholm in the late 1960s. My curiosity was aroused by the fastidious, concentrated expression. Even though the Chaconne is more known, the sonata was the one I found.

Nils Ferlin is one of the Swedish poets whose poetry collections have been published in the largest editions. He is also one of the poets, whose poems most often have been set to music, despite they are often grave with dark motifs. He is one of the eternally living names of Swedish literature and the song treasure, a “people’s poet”.

The opera Waldermarsskatten is a fantasy around a real historical event on the island of Gotland on the east coast of Sweden, “The Valdemar Atterdag holding Visby to ransom, 1361”. The trade in the Baltic Sea was dominated by the German trading monopoly The Hanseatic League, which existed around 1150–1650. The city of Visby was included in this association. After a plague pandemic in the Nordic countries in the 1350s, the so-called ‘black death’, in which a third of the population died, the Danish king Valdemar Atterdag wanted the rich merchants of the Hanseatic League to pay for a renewal of their trade privileges. Valdemar set off to Visby with about thirty ships to Gotland at the end of July 1361. Battles were fought, first on the coast-line then at Visby’s city wall, and in total around 1 800 Swedes are said to have lost their lives, while the Danes’ loss was around 300 souls. An unfair fight, one might think, as the Danish army consisted of German mercenaries, while Gotland was defended by civilian farmers.

Based on ancient Greek mythology and Sophocles' tragedy Electra, the opera is the second of Strauss’s two highly modernist operas, the first being Salome. Laila Andersson-Palme was born in 1941 and moved to Stockholm in 1960. She was immediately accepted in the solo class at the Royal College of Music and began to perform in small roles at the Opera. Following a hugely successful career often singing Richard Strauss and Richard Wagner, in various roles, in 1985 she was appointed Court singer in 1985 and was elected in 1997 as member no. 913 of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music.

After the critic’s failure with his first symphony in 1912, Hjellemo took his time before presenting his second work in this genre – symphony no. 2 in B minor, which was premiered in 1926. The 2nd Symphony is even more extensive and advanced than the 1st, and requires an even larger orchestra. This suggests well that Hjellemo had more confidence in his own abilities than in the critics’ judgment. The symphony is a large, epic work almost unparalleled in Norwegian music history. The symphony was, as critics reported, very well received by the audience – the composer had to come forward three times to receive applause. There are no sources mentioning anything about this concerto when it suddenly appeared on a concert program with the Philharmonic Company Orchestra in May 1934, where Hjellemo himself was conducting three of his works. The violin concerto received a good reception, and in the reviews, the soloist was particularly noticed. The entire program was also broadcast live on radio in several European countries. This piece has been performed on several occasions, also after the composer’s death. The premiere took place on 17 June 1936, and the soloist was Ernst Glaser. Hugo Kramm conducted the Radio Orchestra in Oslo, and also this time the concert was broadcast live in several European countries. At the premiere, the work had the title Rondo for violin and orchestra, but later Hjellemo changed it to Norsk Caprice. The piece consists of a short orchestral opening, introducing the soloist. What follows is a traditional Norwegian Halling (a folk dance in 2/4 or 6/8 meter typical for Norway), virtuoso written for the violin.

It was common practice in the nineteenth century for major orchestral and chamber works to be made available in piano four-hand reductions, as concert and recital-going was still a novelty and many middle-class homes had a piano, and these editions made such large works accessible to a much wider piano-playing public. What was less common was that Raff prepared his own piano four-hand arrangements, as often this time-consuming task was farmed out by composers and publishers to separate arrangers. However, Raff was also a skilled arranger himself. In addition to the original works mentioned above, he wrote a further eight works for piano four-hands which were either early pieces based on the melodies of other composers or more straightforward arrangements and transcriptions of the works of others, made at the request of publishers.

The Piano Four-Hands Sonata in E minor Op. 73b was arranged from the Violin Sonata No. 1, probably early in 1854 shortly after Raff finished work on the Sonata itself, but was not published by Schuberth until 1867, eight years after the original work, which had become the most successful of his five violin sonatas. The second work in the series, the Piano Four-Hands Sonata in A major Op. 90b, is an arrangement of the String Quartet No. 2, and was probably made immediately after Raff finished the Quartet in May 1857. The Quartet was published in 1862, but the Sonata remained in manuscript during Raff’s lifetime although it appears that as late as August 1881 Schuberth was preparing to publish it, as the company acknowledged receipt of Raff’s corrections of the proof. Publication never took place however, possibly because his death in June the next year intervened, and so it was not until the composer’s bicentenary year that Edition Nordstern published a first edition in 2022.