International Composer Festival with Klas Torstensson

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.

His 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.

The second concert in the Composer Festival dedicated to Klas Torstensson features two works from the trilogy A Cycle of the North, which consists of the orchestral pieces The Mainland, The Polar Sea, and The Heaven. “A child’s feet on a sun-warmed path; a solitary man (perhaps the polar explorer, engineer Andrée from my opera The Expedition?) on an endless frozen sea; a steep road upward – perhaps to the sky.”

It was between 2007 and 2012 that he composed the trilogy A cycle of the North. The first work, Fastlandet – The Mainland, premiered at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, was a commission related to a Sibelius theme. In The Mainland, the cor anglais quotes a few notes from The Swan of Tuonela by Sibelius. Like Sibelius, Torstensson had witnessed the beautiful sight of swans in flight, near his cottage in Småland. In addition to the swan motif, we also hear the sound of thin birch twigs snapping.

Himmelen – The Heaven – was co-commissioned by the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and premiered at Konserthuset in 2015, conducted by Sakari Oramo. The work is inspired by three visual artworks from different eras: Anselm Kiefer’s monumental Am Anfang, Gustave Doré’s Jacob’s Ladder – illustrating the dream of Jacob from Genesis 28 – and William Blake’s Jacob’s Ladder. Could the final music box-like passage suggest a glimpse of heavenly peace?

Between The Mainland and The Heaven, we hear the festival’s earliest work, also rich with references to nature. und eine Springflut... (“and a spring tide…”) from 1974 was composed by a 23-year-old Torstensson. The title comes from the text of Arnold Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire: “And a spring tide flooded the quiet horizon…” There are passages in the music, Torstensson says, that overflow with notes – like a spring tide.

The Norrköping Symphony Orchestra appears as guest under the baton of Fredrik Burstedt. The concert opens with Charles Ives’s evocative The Unanswered Question – a piece that fascinated the young Klas Torstensson.

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.

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.

Final concert of the Composer Festival featuring music by Klas Torstensson. It opens with an exploration of the inner workings of the bass saxophone. Yes – the inside of the instrument, rather than traditionally blown notes, is the main focus here. It puffs, mutters and groans, as if saxophonist Jörgen Pettersson were trying to get a great machine up and running.

American-born violinist Joe Puglia has long been based in the Netherlands, like Torstensson himself. Puglia is the soloist in Pocket Size Violin Concerto – a miniature version of the violin concerto Torstensson composed in 2010. Here, he draws on influences such as Swedish folk music and American fiddling tradition.

After the interval, we hear two songs from the award-winning cycle In grosser Sehnsucht, in which each piece is a portrait of a historical woman: Camille Claudel, Frida Kahlo, Queen Christina of Sweden, Rosa Luxemburg and Louise Michel. The texts are based on diary entries, letters and poems. Featured here are Árbol de la Esperanza (Frida Kahlo) and Océaniennes (Louise Michel, anarchist and leading figure in the 1871 Paris Commune).

Sieben mal NEO (“Seven times NEO”) was composed for Norrbotten NEO and is a more compact version of Sieben mal Sieben, originally written for the Dutch New European Ensemble. The commission called for a sibling piece to Arnold Schoenberg’s Serenade from 1924 – including touches of Viennese light music. The work is a suite in seven movements for seven musicians. Members of KammarensembleN perform under the direction of conductor Christian Karlsen.

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.