Daniel Börtz 80 years

Baritone Karl-Magnus Fredriksson and the Royal Swedish Army Band, led by Andreas Hanson, pay tribute to the 80th birthday of Daniel Börtz (on 8 August 2023). “It was a huge surprise when Andreas Hanson called me,” says Daniel Börtz. “It was his idea, and he suggested an all-wind concert of my music.”

Daniel Börtz represents the music of grand gestures and big emotions. His oeuvre is extensive, with everything from small solo pieces to symphonies with a late-Romantic emphasis, as well as several dramatic operas. The Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra gave the world premiere of his Sinfonia 13 in 2019.

Here, the Royal Swedish Army Band performs music for wind orchestra, including two pieces that Börtz composed for the American Wind Symphony about 40 years ago: Concerto for bassoon, wind instruments, percussion, celesta and harp, and Concerto Grosso 2. We also hear Sinfonia 10 for winds, the world premiere of which was given by the Swedish Wind Ensemble in the 1990s. Between the works for wind instruments, we hear a piece for all percussion: Ritual for five percussionists, composed in the early 1980s.

There is also a world premiere of a piece for wind quintet and baritone, with Karl-Magnus Fredriksson performing the vocal solo part. Karl-Magnus Fredriksson is highly familiar with Börtz’s style, and he participated in the opera Medea, which had its world premiere at the Royal Swedish Opera in 2016. He was among the vocal soloists in Sinfonia 13, which contains texts by Kjell Espmark (1930–2022) set to music.

“The music in the new wind quintet is based on the middle part of a song cycle that I composed in 2021, with text by Kjell Espmark,” explains Daniel Börtz. “In the original, it is with piano. So it’s purely a chamber music piece, there among the colossal works.”