Composer Festival – The Expedition

Klas Torstensson’s magnificent opera The Expedition tells the story of Andrée’s ill-fated Arctic journey – a subject that has fascinated Torstensson since his early teens. We hear Intermezzo and Epilogue from the opera – two sections that vividly reflect the contrasts in his music. The beautiful epilogue, a kind of aria based on letters and diary entries, comes strikingly close to Puccini in its lyrical depth.

The work City Imprints was composed for the 400th anniversary of the city of Gothenburg, and its soundscape includes the bustling life of the harbour and shipyards, the painful farewells at the quay, and the roar of stone masonry. The newly written work for the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra is connected to A Cycle of the North, which includes the orchestral pieces The Mainland, The Polar Sea and The Heaven. “I consider this a stand-alone continuation of that trilogy.”

At the start of the programme, Torstensson has also included music by Johann Sebastian Bach/Anton Webern – works that were deeply important to him in his youth when he first dreamt of becoming a composer.

The Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra is conducted by Clemens Schuldt, Chief Conductor of the Orchestre symphonique de Québec. The soprano solo in the excerpts from The Expedition is performed by Charlotte Riedijk, who also took part in the concertante world premiere of the opera at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam in 1999, as well as in the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic’s 2001 performance under the baton of Alan Gilbert.

Volcanic forces, but also the most tender and heartbreakingly emotional music – Klas Torstensson moves between extremes. Born in Sweden but long based in the Netherlands, he is a composer with significant international reach. This year’s Composer Festival focuses primarily on his work from the past two decades, but also includes music from the early 1970s, making the festival a wide-ranging retrospective.