Saint Cecilia has since the middle ages been regarded as the patron saint of music, and above all, church music. She is portrayed with musical instruments in a great number of paintings, and the organ has been her special attribute. Cecilia's name day on November 22 has over the centuries been celebrated with music festivals and many composers have written pieces in her honor. For this album, in honor of the patron saint of music, Torsten Mossberg has chosen love songs mainly by Swedish composers. Tenor Torsten Mossberg is a physician, specialist in Anesthesiology and intensive care. He has studied singing with Ester Ruhrseitz, Eva Pilat and Bjorn Thulin, among others. He has extensive experience as a choir singer, a tenor in the Oscar Chamber Choir in Stockholm, and is often engaged as a soloist. Torsten has a broad repertoire, from ballads to romances and cabaret songs, and has released several albums of rarely recorded songs by Swedish composers.

Born in 1944 in Sundsvall, Swedish opera singer, dramatic soprano, and appointed Court Singer Siv Wennberg has led an impressive career. She has performed leading roles in operas by Wagner, Grieg, Sibelius, and Verdi. On the releases issued in this series, Siv Wennberg demonstrates an enormous musical breadth, equally at home in the dramatic episodes as in the wonderful world of romances. These releases include live recordings as well as studio work, arias, songs with orchestra, songs with piano, duets with other notable musicians such as Nicolai Gedda, live recitals, and much more.

Born in 1944 in Sundsvall, Swedish opera singer, dramatic soprano, and appointed Court Singer Siv Wennberg has led an impressive career. She has performed leading roles in operas by Wagner, Grieg, Sibelius, and Verdi. On the releases issued in this series, Siv Wennberg demonstrates an enormous musical breadth, equally at home in the dramatic episodes as in the wonderful world of romances. These releases include live recordings as well as studio work, arias, songs with orchestra, songs with piano, duets with other notable musicians such as Nicolai Gedda, live recitals, and much more.

Lars Bj�rling writes of his new release: "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."

Born in 1944 in Sundsvall, Swedish opera singer, dramatic soprano, and appointed Court Singer Siv Wennberg has led an impressive career. She has performed leading roles in operas by Wagner, Grieg, Sibelius, and Verdi. On the releases issued in this series, Siv Wennberg demonstrates an enormous musical breadth, equally at home in the dramatic episodes as in the wonderful world of romances. These releases include live recordings as well as studio work, arias, songs with orchestra, songs with piano, duets with other notable musicians such as Nicolai Gedda, live recitals, and much more.

Lars Bj�rling writes of this new project: "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. A strong memory was La boh�me. I tried to hide my tears trickling down the cheek in the last act. Usually it was very exciting to sit in the orchestra seats and keep up with everything that happened on stage. Everyone wore make-up and strange costumes, but 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. There is only one problem; it takes time. Manipulation of the voice in different ways to achieve quick results is doomed to fail. If I can contribute to pass the Bj�rling singing tradition on to future generations of singers, I will be more than pleased."

Lars Bjorling writes of his new tribute release: "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. A strong memory was La boheme. I tried to hide my tears trickling down the cheek in the last act. 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." Utilizing David Bjorling's singing technique, Lars brilliantly presents here a wide array of opera works and art songs.

Carl Jonas Love Almqvist (1793-1866) is one of the few yet current Swedish authors prior to Strindberg. Most of his writings he collected in the universal work Tornrosens Bok (The Book of Thornrose), in which he wanted to unite “picture, music and script together, and mould into a single brand” and thus create a kind of Gesamtkunstwerk. He was also strictly speaking “only” a talented amateur, although he often claimed that deep down he was primarily a musical person. Already during or shortly after his illustrious Varmland adventure 1823-24- when he left Stockholm for living an idealized peasant life in the small village Kola- he produced two large note booklets, one for voices and one for keyboard. Both wear the title ‘Free Musical Fantasies,’ and they associate directly to his literary counterpart, originally called “Free Fantasies, which, considered as an entity, by Mr. Hugo Lowenstierna sometimes called Tornrosens Bok [The Book of the Thorn-rose].” Lennart Hedwall is a musically versatile gentleman who has been active as a composer, pianist, organist, conductor, pedagogue and musicologist. He studied with, among others, Olof Wibergh, Gottfrid Boon, Tor Mann, Sven-Erik Back and Karl-Birger Blomdahl and in Darmstadt, Vienna and Paris. Hedwall has in addition published biographies of Hugo Alfven, Wilhelm Peterson-Berger, Erik Gustaf Geijer, Oscar Bystrom and Carl Jonas Love Almqvist, books called Operetta and musicals, The Swedish Symphony, and Swedish Music History. He discovered Almqvist’s compositions in the early 1950s and has been campaigning for them at symposiums and concerts and on radio. In 1984 he won together with singer Iwa Sorensen a Grammy for a LP with works by Almqvist.

Kurt Weill was a completely groundbreaking composer in that he, along with Bertolt Brecht developed the characteristic cabaret style (Song) inspired by the American jazz music, minstrel shows and vaudeville with influences from Jewish klezmer music. Tango often played a major role, even in his operas. Often Weill sought after a Verfremdungseffekt, by using odd chords for the key, achieving a kind of desolation and unpleasant feeling. In the 1920s, his songs often sung by an actor. The performance was often characterized as Sprechgesang, recitative, helping the message to carry over the ramp. Lotte Lenya, Kurt Weill's wife, was a very successful actress with strong charisma but with an almost unlovely voice. She came to survive her husband by over 30 years and was his best ambassador. When Weill came to Paris he changed his style. The songs then had a softer image. When he later came to New York he toned down some of the characteristic cabaret style in favor of a more Broadway-customed style. Nevertheless, there remain elements of Hebrew flavour and typical Weill touches in these songs. Many of these are now considered to belong to The American Songbook. On this recording we have strived to portray the musical development of Kurt Weill, from Berlin to Broadway, from 1928 to 1950, and have selected songs that are characteristic for each period.

Black is White, said the Emperor was performed successfully at the Swedish Royal Opera in the mid nineteen sixties. It is a complete opera for children and families, which came to stay on the repertoire for three whole years. The libretto is the biggest piece of writing for the stage by the Swedish author and renowned poet Lennart Hellsing. It is a fairy tale opera for both children and adults and as such an add phenomenon on the Swedish opera stage, as well as internationally. Along with Engelbert Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel, which is also intended for an entire opera evening, Black is White, said the Emperor is one of very few existicing real family operas. It consists of two acts with intermission and was composed for an orchestra of 27 musicians, a choir, a ballet corps and ten soloists. In other words it is a real opera without the economical compromises that so often follow suit when a musical performance is intended for younger listeners. The present recording of Black is White, said the Emperor is the only complete recording known to exist. It was made at the Royal Opera House at the very first performance on January 1, 1965.

Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900. The work, based on Victorien Sardou's 1887 French-language dramatic play, La Tosca, is a melodramatic piece set in Rome in June 1800, with the Kingdom of Naples's control of Rome threatened by Napoleon's invasion of Italy. It contains depictions of torture, murder and suicide, as well as some of Puccini's best-known lyrical arias. This production, recorded on September 20, 1984, features Laila Andersson-Palme in the lead role of Floria Tosca. She is joined by opera greats Rolf Bjorling, Erik Saeden, Anders Bergstrom, and others, as well as the Royal Swedish Orchestra led by Carlo Felice Cillario.

Represented on this release are two Swedish composers from the late 19th century, who despite contemporary recognition usually do not count among the still enduring and current. Joseph Dente, after having taken the position as Master of the The Royal Court Orchestra, reached the highest rank a composer could then get in Sweden, when he in 1882 became teacher in composition at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. In the case of Bengt Wilhelm Hallberg it was certainly quite simply his daily activities in the "small town" Landskrona (in the southern province Skane) - he was not visible from the out-look of Stockholm, where "everything happened", and a few occasional successes in Copenhagen did not give any greater reputation further north. But above all, the opportunities to get their music noticed, performed and printed were extremely limited, particularly for those composers who wanted to write orchestral and chamber music - still there was only one single professional orchestra in Sweden, The Royal Court Orchestra. It is therefore hardly surprising that composers in symphonic format were comparatively few; both Hallberg and Dente remained "non-recurrent symphonists".

Brenda Lucas Ogdon graduated with Honors from the Royal Northern College of Music in 1957. John Ogdon was a Student at the College at the same time and John and Brenda were married in 1960. Brenda embarked on a Solo career making her first appearance with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra at the age of 21 and giving solo recitals for the BBC from the Manchester Studio. John and Brenda performed as a Duo partnership and were invited to play at several major festivals. In 1993 Brenda founded the John Ogdon Foundation- a Charity dedicated to the preservation of John's memory. On this release, Brenda performs Bach's Preludes and Fugues from The Well-Tempered Clavichord. "Always technically adept and fluent." (Evening Standard) "Throughout she played with elegance, a sure technical command and the full involvement and fluidity of movement of arms and upper body- she brings a unique personality- she elicited tones of exquisite beauty from the Steinway Model D Piano." (Ellesworth American)

Geijer was one of the prominent figures in the formation of G�tiska f�rbundet (The Geatish Society), who took the task of promoting archaeology, but also Swedish patriotism. As editor of the society's magazine, he published his own poems in the spirit of the time and also his music settings of his poetry. Geijer showed a great talent for music early on. Although he seems to have considered a career in music, it remained for him simply an activity for spare time. His mind was for chamber music and the smaller format, as well as songs. In 1816 his first piano trio was composed and in 1822 the first two string quartets in F Minor and B flat Major, and during the rest of the decade, among other things, a piano quintet, a piano quartet and two violin Sonatas. Randel was a Swedish musician and composer. As concertmaster at the Royal Opera Orchestra he arranged and composed music for some 20 plays. Especially famous is his composition and arrangement of F A Dahlgren's play V�rml�nningarna (1846), which for many years was a beloved and recurrent feature of the repertoire of the Stockholm Opera. He also composed four violin concertos, overtures and chamber works. The violin concertos are written in a French virtuoso style while the chamber music is influenced by the late style of Haydn and the early of Beethoven. Among the chamber works there are three string quartets and several solo pieces for violin. This new release explores the chamber works of these two largely unknown composers.

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"].