Classical Music

Kerstin Margareta Meyer, CBE (3 April 1928 – 14 April 2020) was a Swedish mezzo-soprano who enjoyed an international career in opera and concert. She made her debut at 24 as Azucena in Il trovatore, 11 September 1952, at the Royal Stockholm Opera. A long-time member of the Royal Swedish Opera and Hamburg State Opera, she appeared regularly at the Royal Opera House in London and international opera houses and festivals. She died at the age of 92 in April 2020. The present release is a showcase of performances recorded between 1956 and 1980, during the peak of her career.

Lars Cleveman was educated at the Opera Academy in Stockholm. He graduated in 1988, but had made his debut as the hotel porter in Benjamin Britten's Death in Venice at Göta Lejon in 1984. He was an early member of the Royal Opera Choir and as a soloist he had his first roles at Folkoperan and Wermland Opera. Between 1996 and 2009, Cleveman was associated with the Royal Opera in Stockholm. Cleveman is a sought-after soloist in Europe. He has sung leading roles at the Copenhagen Opera, the opera houses in Kiel, Stuttgart, Riga, Halle, Gothenburg and at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. He had the title role as Tannhäuser in Bayreuth in 2011. He has appeared as a replacement as Tristan in Wagner's Tristan and Isolde alongside Nina Stemme at Covent Garden and as Parsifal in Albert Hall in 2013. Lars Cleveman made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera as Siegfried in both Siegfried and Götterdämmerung in the spring. 2013 with Deborah Voigt as Brünnhilde. He has released a number of records as a rock artist, mainly as the founder and leading figure in Dom Dummaste, but also in his own name.

Torsten Mossberg writes: “My selection of songs for this album is entirely subjective. I’ve chosen songs I like and to which I think I can do justice. It is strange that several of the chosen songs have not become more popular. Here you will find everything from Därute så tyst, a dialogue between Mr. Brunander and Eve about what is best: Roslagen or Paris, stories from Argentina, a romantic Personligt samtal, a lovely Bal på Skeppsholmen, to the melancholy Minnet och tystnaden, Taube’s final composition. Some of the songs were never recorded by Taube himself. Sandhamnsballaden is not at all recorded before. With this album, I would like to highlight songs that gives a complementary picture of the extent of Taube’s artistry. The last song Nocturne is not among the rarely heard. However, I recorded it when I found Jonas Isaksson’s arrangement so idiomatic and delicate.”

Of her newest release, Maria Kihlgren writes: “My earlier albums, with the exception of a personal portrait recorded in 1990, have special themes. One of them, Music from the Mediterranean (Sterling CDA 1664-2), contains music by composers from countries bordering on the Mediterranean. Another, Romantic Silhouettes is a cross-section through a century of Romantic music by composers from central Europe. The present album, Nordic Master Composers, includes four major works by some of the Nordic countries’ top composers. As I live in that part of the world myself, it felt right to make a record of Nordic music – even if no Icelandic works are featured. All the composers are different in character, but they still have a musical style in common.

A harp creates completely different overtones than a grand piano, which makes a big difference between singing with the accompaniment of a harp, and a grand piano. The singer has to adjust the ears to a completely different sound that partly supports the song well, but also makes it difficult for the singer to intonate; the singer is more vulnerable than with a piano accompaniment. The harp’s design makes it hard for the harpist to quickly make key changes and modulations, that for a pianist is natural, or even simple. Sometimes the key has to be adapted to the harp’s capability. A good and direct communication between singer and accompanist is always essential, regardless of accompaniment. Even a flexible and sensitive harpist can experience more difficulties to shift tempo than a pianist, forcing the singer to phrase different than singing to the piano or guitar. However, such difficulties must be tackled and afterwards the cooperation can be rewarded with an emergence of a magical atmosphere. Since the harpist Stina Hellberg Agback is also a skilful improviser, another dimension is added, here in the songs by George Gershwin.

This is a collection of Swedish orchestral recordings, originally released on LP and now transferred to new mediums. The music spans the Baroque era of Johan Agrell through to the mid-20th century of Bo Linde. There are many premiere recordings here, including Peterson-Berger’s May Carnival in Stockholm, an exciting work celebrating the end of winter and the Stockholm Spring. Other highlights are Erik Saedéns wonderful singing of the Peterson-Berger ballads, the brooding Romanticism of Adolf Wiklund’s Symphonic Prologue, and the timeless melodies of Lars-Erik Larsson long appreciated by Swedish audiences. Hugo Alfvén’s short piece, part of a cantata, was said to be the composer’s own favorite composition. Varied and rich, as it should be - a Smörgåsbord of Swedish orchestral music.

“When my Father Jussi was chosen as the 20th century’s leading male opera singer by English music critics at the turn of the century, we felt great joy and pride in the family. From my very early age I experienced singing and music at home, but most of all, I remember visiting the Opera house when Father sang. As soon as Father began to sing, I recognized him, it was easy. He sounded ‘different’ than the rest of the ensemble. My Father was in his early 30s and had then been singing for 25 years. Already at the age of four to five, my Father and his brothers began to learn the essentials of the art of singing under my grandfather David’s solid guidance. I have spent a great deal of my life exploring the secrets of the Italian bel canto, conveyed by David and my Father, and I have reached the conclusion that there are no secrets; it is just the natural voice that has to be heard, free from settings and so-called tone formation.” (Lars Björling)

In 1976, Torbjörn Iwan Lundquist composed a piece, Sisu, for the six musicians in the Stockholm percussion ensemble. A few years later, the ensemble was transformed and took the name Kroumata. Sisu became one of the regular works in the ensemble’s repertoire. They also recorded it. Lundquist then got the idea to compose a larger work for orchestra where he would include the Kroumata ensemble. The result was the eighth symphony, which he began in 1989 and completed in 1992. He called the new symphony, Kroumata Symphony. Lundquist, however, keenly stressed that the eighth symphony, although Kroumata has an important part, is not a percussion concerto but a true symphony. The symphony was premiered in Malmö, with the Malmö Symphony Orchestra and Kroumata in 2002. It became a posthumous performance. Two years earlier, Torbjörn Iwan Lundquist had passed away. The first performance was led by B. Tommy Andersson and is the one on this release. The fifth symphony was completed in 1980. It is for a smaller orchestra with just double woodwinds, two trumpets, two trombones, percussion and strings. It is dedicated to Halmstad Chamber Orchestra, which premiered it in February 1980. The fifth symphony is much more classical in its structure than Lundquist's previous symphonies. The symphony has three movements. Lundquist aptly called it Die Wienerische, probably not so much referring to the city of Vienna, as to the formally structured Viennese classical music of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. There are no Viennese waltzes to find here, but an elaborated structure of a classic sonata. (Curt Carlsson, 2020)

Albert Rubenson has been described variously as ‘a Swedish Grieg’ and as Sweden’s first national romanticist. With his few, but high quality works in the symphonic genre and his activity as a visionary music critic, he is one of the 19th century’s more interesting individuals in Swedish music life. This programme from Caroline Gentele and Victoria Power showcases his songs for voice and piano. Caroline Gentele studied at Opera Studio 67 in Stockholm from 1993 to 1997. She made her stage debut during the summer of 1994 as Barbarina in Mozart’s ”Le Nozze di Figaro” at Confidencen, Ulriksdal Palace Theatre. Possibly her most critically acclaimed role is The Queen of the Night in Mozart’s ” Die Zauberflöte”. She has sung this role at the Ulriksdal Palace Theatre in 2000, Ystad’s Theatre, Drottningholms Slottsteater and at the Royal Opera. At Folkoperan she has sung the roles of Barbarina in Mozarts ”Le Nozze di Figaro”, Flora in Verdi's ”La Traviata” and Sivan in Sven David Sandströms opera ”Jeppe på Berget” . Caroline received very warm and favorable reviews for her role as Adèle the chambermaid in Strauss’ ”Die Fledermaus” both at the Kristina Theatre Sigtuna in and touring once again with the Riksteatern

Martin Scherber’s output is modest in size. He worked for years on each of his symphonies. In addition, between 1930 and 1937 he composed several song cycles (including 27 children’s songs) and individual songs to texts by Goethe, Morgenstern, Novalis and himself. Observations by Scherber himself about his music are very rare, and no comments about the First Symphony have survived from the period during which it was being written. The only remarks that we have come from the time of the work’s revision after the first performance in March 1952. On 1 August 1953, for example, Scherber tells us: ‘The world of the First Symphony is close to my heart. In fact I am more at one with these worlds than with everything in this world. It was my wish that we should both hear it the way it was intended.’

Although Ravel (1875-1937) was a pianist, and composed his keyboard pieces with a sure knowledge of the instrument and what it was capable of, he lacked the technique of the likes of, for instance, Chopin, Liszt or Rachmaninov as an outright composer-pianist. Because of this, Ravel’s piano works were not written as vehicles to demonstrate pianistic virtuosity as a goal in itself, even if some of them, such as Gaspard de la Nuit, present enormous challenges for the prospective performer. Enter acclaimed soloist Brenda Lucas Ogdon, more than up to those challenges!

"The album marks only the most recent chapter of Brenda’s rich musical history. Having been awarded the Gold Medal from the Associated Board...Brenda has since gone on to perform amongst the London Symphony Orchestra, BBC Scottish Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and across the US, Australia, the Soviet Union, Hong Kong, and more. Ogdon has announced that her royalties from the album will be donated to Shelter, the UK homeless charity. This act follows in the spirit of the artist’s previous charity work." -The Cross-Eyed Pianist

Peter Lindroth writes of this new release: “I discovered the poetry of Wilfred Owen rather late. At school in Sweden, in the 1950’s and 60’s, one hardly came across any modern poetry, let alone English wartime poetry. Owen came to me through reading Pat Barker’s Regeneration trilogy. I read novels and poems by Sassoon, Graves, Blunden, Brooke, Rosenberg, Barbusse, Brittain, Woolf and finally – as his poetry was the hardest to find – Wilfred Owen. The poems bowled me over completely. I knew immediately that I had to set this poetry to music. Wilfred Owen wrote his poems 1917–1918. I composed the music 2007–2008. In 2008, on November 11, bass baritone singer John Erik Eleby and pianist Mårten Landström premiered The Wilfred Owen Songs at Teaterstudio Lederman in Stockholm. A live recording from that concert was aired later on Swedish Radio. In 2018, on November 4, a hundred years to the day that Wilfred Owen was killed, John Erik Eleby and pianist Mats Jansson performed the songs in the village church of Ors, France, concluding the 2018 Wilfred Owen commemorations at Ors.”

Per August Ölander was born in Linköping on 8 January 1824. He was a composer, violinist, writer, and critic, all on the side of his official career. He was employed as a civil servant by the Swedish Customs Service in 1847 and advanced to the position of controller in 1867. Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music from 1864. His musical production consists of works in a variety of genres, including a symphony and an opera. Ölander died on 3 August 1886 in Stockholm. He composed his four-act opera Blenda after the play by Ludwig Josephson and Ernst Wallmark. Here, the opera is performed by the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Choir under the direction of Michael Bartosch, and features soprano Karin Ingeback in the title role.

The story takes place in Baghdad at the time of the reign of Caliph Harun-al-Rashid, which is best imagined at the distance of a fairy tale. It is about two young people, the rich merchant’s son Alimelek and Irene, the caliph’s niece. Both grow up in prosperity and idleness. After the death of her parents, Irene was received by the caliph and brought up with paternal love and an uncommon freedom. Eventually she also takes the liberty to refuse Prince Selim, the caliph’s choice of husband, which considerably troubles her relationship with the caliph. She is considering fleeing the palace. The opportunity comes when a pleasure boat gets into a storm and capsizes. Only Irene is rescued from the tragedy, by the hand of Alimelek, who, wanting for anything better to do, happens to be at sea. When Irene opens her eyes, it is love at first sight and the two decide to live together as man and wife in Alimelek’s grandiose home. Of course, Alimelek must hide his young wife, because the caliph has people all over the town looking for her. His previous drinking companions – on whom he has already wasted half of the fortune he inherited from his father, and whom he less and less regards as his friends – he quite easily breaks with, in favour of a more secluded life. His hospitality is only shown to strangers, for whom he does not have to fear that Irene’s identity will be recognized.