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Phono Suecia - Releases
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| Hymns to the Night - Tommie Haglund
“ When composing Tommie Haglund goes straight to the expression and his inner feelings. Because of this his music becomes extremely direct and immensely emotive,” says the cellist John Ehde, one of the strongly devoted musicians around Tommie Haglund who have appeared intent on bringing his music to the public. Thanks to the American violinist Elizabeth Pitcairn performing on the legendary Mendelssohn -Violin ”The Red Violin” Hymns to the Night, Haglund’s music have been widely circulated.
Tommie Haglund’s music embodies a powerful spirituality. This is hinted at in many of his titles, such as Hymnen an die Nacht/Hymns to the Night, borrowed from the German author Novalis and the awarded Daughter of the Voice which celebrated the 700th anniversary of the birth of Saint Birgitta.
|  | Date: 2010-06-17
| Debris Reassembled - Henrik Strindberg/ Fredrik Hedelin/ Christofer Elgh/ Kim Hedås/ Mattias Petersson/ Pär Lindgren/ Peter Hansen/ Tony Blomdahl
The peärls before swïne experience (Sara Hammarström ,flutes, George Kentros ,violin, Mats Olofsson, cello, and Mårten Landström ,piano) was formed in 1995. With the idea of performing only short pieces, they have commissioned their own repertoire consisting of over 120 works from 20 countries, written by composers such as Anders Hillborg, Mikael Edlund, David Lang, and Tristan Murail.
” If there is a "swïne aesthetic"- keeping in mind that we began as a reaction to a certain mystification of music - it is that we try to be consciously unpretentious and rather direct when we play and we also try to find an emotional center in everything we play. ” |  | Date: 2010-01-11
| Grains - Ann-Sofi Söderqvist
From the opening fanfaric theme of Grains and the sorrowful moaning of Pisagua, to Elements, a jazz orchestra masterpiece, Ann-Sofi Söderqvist astonishes, elates and energizes the listener with her compositions. |  | Date: 2009-09-02
| Quartetto con forza - Mats Larsson Gothe/ Anders Hillborg/ Per Mårtensson/ Mika Pelo
Stenhammar Quartet is one of Scandinavia's leading quartets.
Their performance is characterized by a warm and energetic musicianship together with striking technical refinement.
One aspect of the quartet's profile is its work with contemporary music. Here string quartets by prominent composers like Mats Larsson Gothe, Anders Hillborg, Per Mårtensson and Mika Pelo are presented. |  | Date: 2009-05-19
| Satyricon - B Tommy Andersson
To move in order to stay in one place, to use tradition to find the way forward: this is also how B Tommy Anderson's music can be summed up.
What one notices above all in his music , aside from it sounding natural, is a feeling of longing.
B Tommy Andersson's list of works is quite large, and includes a great number of orchestral works, solo concertos, chamber music works, and pieces for choir. In this composer portrait all categories are represented with the orchestral work Satyricon, Reflections for soprano saxophone and orchestra, the Horn Concerto, the choral works Sonnet XVIII and Kyssar vill jag dricka (I Would Drink Kisses) and Pieces for Pontus for solopiano. |  | Date: 2009-04-16
| Scope - Johan Berke/ Fredrik Nordström
The meeting between a jazz quintet - Johan Berke Upstairs Five - and a brass quintet is the starting point for the music on this CD.
Johan Berke and Fredrik Nordström used the unique sound and expression of each individual group in the composing process. The result can be described as a synthesis of jazz, European contemporary classical music and free improvisation.
A commission was made in 2007 by The Swedish Arts Grants Committee for the new ensemble Arveheim/Berke Upscale Ten and the music was premiered at the concert hall in Nybrokajen 11 the same year. |  | Date: 2009-03-28
| Unheard of - Again - Henrik Strindberg/ Karin Rehnqvist/ Djuro Zivkovic/ Victoria Borisova-Ollas/ Pär Frid/ Mattias Lysell/ Benjamin Staern
Four new works by the Swedish composers Henrik Strindberg, Pär Frid, Djuro Zivkovic and Benjamin Staern were recorded during the summer of 2008. Together with compositions by Karin Rehnqvist, Victoria Borisova-Ollas and Mattias Lysell this CD presents a document of time with great dynamics and poetry. |  | Date: 2008-12-02
| Duo con forza - Olov Helge/ Torbjörn Grass/ Lars Ekström/ Sergei Dmitriev/ Miklós Maros/ Paula af Malmborg Ward/ Albert Schnelzer
The pieces chosen for this CD have a communicative and immediate character. The music has lightness and a swing, and it is the joy of playing that is the starting point: the dance-like, the humorous, and the playful.
The Rhythm Art Duo specializes in presenting new percussion music in such a way that people of all ages can understand and enjoy it. |  | Date: 2008-11-03
| Persuasion - Britta Byström
Britta Byström’s music feels spontaneous but is exceptionally well thought out - ascetic, but still playful . Like a Japanese garden.
Britta Byström is a pronounced orchestral composer. Her list of works contains few works for voice, but an important exception is her chamber opera, If One Loses One’s Luggage. The final aria is sung by Patricia "from the other side”: Who among you shall leave your world? Britta Byström shows here how beautiful desolation can be.
Impressionistic minimalism might it just be another possible description of Britta Byström’s musical world? |  | Date: 2008-05-08
| The Triumph of Heaven - Victoria Borisova-Ollas
Is such a thing as nationality reflected in music composed today?
Victoria Borisova-Ollas’ music bears the imprints of a youth spent in Russia. And although her work bears some traces of influence by Shostakovich and by the Minimalist School, this internationally sought-after composer likes to think of her musical voice as being simply her own.
The scores of Victoria Borisova-Ollas are densely crafted with a strong narrative content.
Her first symphony, entitled The Triumph of Heaven (2001), is her most decidedly Russian work. And she considers herself a storyteller, much in the vein of the Russian tradition . |  | Date: 2008-04-23
| Wolfgang on My Mind - Georg Riedel
Like other great jazz composers before him, Georg Riedel makes his tonal paintings with the colours of the individueal players. Individual indeed - here are some of the foremost voices in the history of Swedish jazz, The Swedish Radio Jazz Group including among othersJan Johansson, Arne Domnerus, Jan Allan, Lennart Åberg, Claes Rosendahl, Rune Gustafsson, Bosse Broberg, Nils Landgren, Egil Johansen. |  | Date: 2008-04-04
| Lift Off - Klas Lindquist
Klas Lindquist had nine specific musicians in mind when he wrote this music. The different personalities and his style of writing forms the music on his first album. Here you can find traces of swing, bebop, Ellington and Strayhorn with emphasis on melody and beat . |  | Date: 2008-04-04
| Flauto con forza - André Chini/ Arne Mellnäs/ Per Mårtensson
Anders Jonhäll is an exceedingly sensitive musician whose contributions to the orchestra most often shine, whether it is Mozart or Boulez being performed.
Common for the composers Per Mårtensson, André Chini, and Arne Mellnäs
is a form of listening that is simultaneously both experimental and anchored in tradition. Also uniting the six workson this cd is a play around the meaning of virtuosity, its technical and human challenges, the meeting between the virtuoso and the lyrical. |  | Date: 2008-02-11
| Cordes - Kent Olofsson
Kent Olofsson is internationally known for his chamber music written in close collaboration with ensembles and musicians. Corde and The Bells culminations in his production, here series of works for guitar, percussion, choir, solovoices and chamber ensembles are melded together into a powerful synthetic conclusion. |  | Date: 2008-01-18
| Inside Information - Per Tjernberg
Exciting beat in big band jazz by Per Tjernberg
Per Tjernberg has released several recordings previously but this is the first cd-recording of his compositions for big band. Three drummers and Per Tjernberg himself on percussion gives an exciting beat to this big band with musicians from the Swedish jazz elite.
Musicians: Ulf Adåker, Bengt Berger, Ulf Bjurenhed, Christer Bothén, Jonas Eklund, Åke Eriksson, Desmond Foster, Nils Janson, Klas Jervfors, Tommy Koverhult, Sven Larsson, Magnus Lindgren, Bernt Rosengren, Christian Spering, Bobo Stenson, Per Tjernberg, Mattias Ståhl, Magnus Wiklund, David Wilczewski, Morgan Ågren, Mats Öberg |  | Date: 2007-06-04
| Drama - Jonas Franke-Blom
The music in Drama was originally written for the theatre. Much of the inspiration for the works comes from a stage situation where the music functions as a counterpoint to the text and where returning motives become important cornerstones.
The compositions were commissioned in connection with the respective productions at the Gothenburg City Theatre: Hamlet - premiere in 1997; Albert Speer - premiere in 2001 (at Stora Teatern); and The Tempest - premiere in 2002. |  | Date: 2007-02-09
| New Places - Håkan Broström
Here we can meet the entire Håkan Broström: a superb jazz soloist, an extremely talented songwriter whose melodies have the ability to "stick" and echo on within the listener, and one who can also handle an orchestral palette with verve. This is a CD that grows, revealing new aspects with each listening. It is music to which one often can return. |  | Date: 2006-09-15
| Ricamo - Cristian Marina/ Torsten Nilsson/ Ingvar Lidholm/ Miklós Maros/ Thomas Liljeholm
Trio Tribukaitt/Pettersson/Berg consists of Bengt Tribukait, organ, piano and harpsichord, Michael Pettersson, flutes and Daniel Berg, percussion with the marimba as his speciality. With their unique possibilities for sonorous variation and their virtuoso playing, the trio has inspired many Swedish composers to write for them.
Since the forming of the group ten years ago the trio took a place at the fore of Swedish new music ensembles.
Modernism with a traditional footing has been the recipe used by the ensemble to convey the music of our time for a wider audience. |  | Date: 2006-08-24
| Clarinetto con forza - Jonas Forssell/ Carin Bartosch Edström/ Fredrik Söderberg/ Viking Dahl/ Ingvar Lidholm/ Hans Eklund/ Sven-David Sandström
Communication is central for Staffan Mårtensson. “The music has to be inviting to the listener, have something to say. My job is to give the piece life.”
“It is not enough to have a beautiful tone. I want to test the instrument’s possibilities. No matter the means of expression — it is my duty to make it dramatic and full of life .
Just as important for Staffan Mårtensson is his collaboration with composers, being a part of the creative process, going down untested paths.
Staffan Mårtensson (b 1964) is the solo clarinetist at the Royal Stockholm Opera. He appears often as a soloist and chamber musician both in Sweden and abroad, the past year a lot in France.
His repertoire spans over the great clarinet works, from Mozart, Brahms, and Debussy to Stockhausen. His interest in new music has always been strong.
In 2004, Staffan Mårtensson premiered the Austrian composer Roland Freisitzer’s concerto for basset clarinet at the Musikverein in Vienna. In all he has premiered six clarinet concertos, five solo works, and several chamber works.
|  | Date: 2006-08-24
| International departures - Örjan Fahlström
The composer and arranger Örjan Fahlström is one of Sweden's most popular orchestra leaders. With his compositions he has contributed to the renewal and expansion of the patterns of modern big band music. Here the Fahlström International Big Band and the Big Band from the North German Radio give us example of Fahlström's ability to fully use the possibilities of the big band.
In F.I.B.B. Sahib Shihab, Benny Bailey, Idrees Suleiman, Palle Mikkelborg, Nils Landgren, Bobo Stenson, Palle Danielsson take part together with several other eminent musicians. |  | Date: 2006-07-03
| Fagotto con forza - Per Mårtensson/ Anders Eliasson/ André Chini/ Daniel Börtz/ Ivo Nilsson
Knut Sönstevold is an extremely versatile bassoon player.
He has devoted more than thirty years of his life towards playing the bassoon in symphony orchestras. Alongside he has performed chamber music with among others the Stockholm Philharmonic Wind Quintet and the Stockholm Wind Quintet. As a soloist he has through the years had a fruitful collaboration with many composers of his time. The result of this is presented on this cd where all of the works except Börtz’ Concerto are dedicated to Knut Sönstevold. |  | Date: 2006-06-13
| Not Yet Dawn - Lennart Fredriksson
In1978-1988, Lennart Fredriksson was the first violinist in one of Sweden’s most
renowned string quartets, the Berwald Quartet. He has also been active as being
concertmaster in both the Norrköping and Helsingborg Symphony Orchestras. As a composer, Lennart Fredriksson is primarily an autodidact. Some of his major works are written for solo violin and strings in various constellations.
Presented on this cd : Violin Concerto, Sonata scura for string orchestra, Trio Sonata for violin, cello and piano and his choir work Three Night Songs.with texts by Karin Boye, Viktor Rydberg and Per-Olov Enquist. |  | Date: 2006-06-09
| Point Blank - Dror Feiler
(Point Blank)
It is about forces that ignite, that break through the polite and uniform.In works like Sham Mayim, composed for Ensemble Modern, and Point Blank, written for Klangforum Wien, here in a brilliant and impressive performance by Klangforum Wien together with the front line of the improvisational group Lokomotiv Konkret. The title bespeaks a confrontation that is also direct: no distance, the tones go straight to their goal.
The same thing can be said of Music for Dead Europeans as wll as Sham Mayim here in a dense and inspired interpretation by the Gothenburg based Gageego ensemble.
The melodies of the Jewish cantor songs, careful and melancholy, show themselves, most clearly in the little miniature Ki, written for the Stockholm Saxophone Quartet.
|  | Date: 2006-03-20
| Composer's Big Fun - Jan Levander/ Ann-Sofi Söderqvist/ Joakim Milder
Composer’s Big Fun is far from the caricature of a big band weighted down by tradition on remote-controlled maneuvers in Count Basie’s well-trodden footsteps. Instead it is a lust-filled oasis for the three bandleaders and their handpicked musicians.
This music is in a delicate balance between collective and individual, between composed and free, between the precise and the hinted at. Everything is here. All you have to do is help yourself to the bounty. |  | Date: 2006-03-20
| Colours in Play - Åke Erikson
Åke Erikson (b. 1937 in Uppsala) first became known to the public as a radical composer and pianist. In 1966 he joined the lively “Uppsala league” that used to organise appreciated concerts of the very latest in new music. . Early on he worked as a jazz pianist and jazz is still very much in the picture, but he also studied classical piano both with Herbert Westrell and Knut Wiggen.
He went on to study at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm (teacher of theory diploma). He has also been a teacher at the Music Colleges in Stockholm and in Gothenburg and at Uppsala University.
Erikson’s music has been very successful and has been appreciated by the audience and the critics alike as well as by musicians. It is marked by a dynamic sonic imagination, regardless of whether it is chamber music, choral work or orchestral compositions. |  | Date: 2005-11-22
| Rhizome - Christer Lindwall
Christer Lindwall has been called the foremost representative of the “neo-complex” school in Sweden.
Since his electro-acoustic breakthrough work Points (Warsaw-autumn 1986), he has confined himself almost exclusively to chamber music, with over 30 works for virtuoso soloists and ensembles.
Most of the music that is the result of a long collaboration between the guitar virtuoso Stefan Östersjö and the composer Christer Lindwall is documented on this CD . The listener will find a window into an important artistic process through this fragment of a period in the working life of a radical and uncompromising but at the same time sensitive and open composer . |  | Date: 2005-11-17
| Failles - Madeleine Isaksson
(Failles)
Madeleine Isaksson, born in 1956, studied from 1979 – 1987 at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. After that she traveled to Amsterdam for a year of studies with the composer Louis Andriessen, later moving on to France, where she has lived and worked since the beginning of the 1990s outside of Paris. Meeting with composers such as Brian Ferneyhough, Iannis Xenakis, Morton Feldman and Emanuel Nunes have contributed to her development as a composer. The exposure to the music by Giacinto Scelsi in Darmstadt came also to play an important role.
Visual art and literature have been very essential for her creativity, which is apparent in color symbols for different instruments and forms, as well as in verbal descriptions. Her music does not tell a story, it comments, associates and expresses atmospheres through a singular, developed language.
” There is something going on, something that has matured and that expresses itself in a musical form"
The quote is telling, and is applicable not only to the individual works, but also to Madeleine Isaksson’s whole attitude towards creation. |  | Date: 2005-10-10
| Riket är ditt - Jonas Forssell
(Thine is the Kingdom)
A warmhearted opera buffa about refugees seeking shelter in a convent.
The story is actually based on reality. The Helgeand sisters in Alsike convent have been hiding refugees from the police since 1978. This successful performance by the Vadstena Academy was recorded by the Swedish Television in 1992 and was awarded several prizes.
Subtitles in Swedish, English and German.
128 pages booklet included with the libretto in Swedish, English and German.
Critics after the première performance:
”This new opera is a masterpiece, the direction outstanding and the singers performances are brilliant.” SvD
”Thine is the Kingdom by Jonas Forssell is a rare event presenting a great, exceptionally funny opera comedy in three acts about the Swedish immigration policy.” Expressen |  | Date: 2005-06-16
| Så vill jag älska dig - Jan Sigurd
Jan Sigurd divides his time between the piano and the type-writer. And they are not as far from each other as you may thionk. Music ands lyrics are closely linked in Jan Sigurds world; theese two moons circle around each other constantly changing places. Also, jazz is an important ingredient in this universe. The instrumentalists, the choir and above all the vocal soloist, Anna-Mia Barwe, display their roots in jazz music while not being adverse to other atmospheres. |  | Date: 2005-04-05
| Immeasurable Traces - Rolf Enström
“My art lies in a borderland between pictorial art and music – where the images are missing”.
Rolf Enström composes electroacoustic music, often combining it with voices, instruments or images. Some of his works are classics of contemporary Swedish music: Slutförbannelser and Tjidtjag och Tjidtjaggaise.
One of the works presented on this cd is Music for an Observatory which was commissioned for Stockholms Observatorium’s 250th anniversary 2003. Rolf Enström’s describes a night-time experience in New Zealand in 1988.
“I got out of the car and turned my face upwards. When I saw the amazingly rich firmament I had what you may call a shock. The experience still lives inside me and it is only now, in retrospect, that I understand that it is that experience I managed to transform into sounds in a passage in ‘Observatoriemusik’.” |  | Date: 2005-02-20
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