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Pianist Peter Friis Johansson has brought together

renowned musicians, including violinist Johan Dalene

and soprano Sofie Asplund, for a programme that

juxtaposes three generations of Swedish composers. The

vocal and chamber works performed here testify to the

special place these genres occupy in Swedish art music

and to the vitality of musical societies in the early

twentieth century, which sparked an interest that went

far beyond easily digestible music.

Andreas Hallen is the oldest of the composers featured

here. His Piano Quartet shows great confidence despite

being an early work. Like many composers of his

generation, Hallen readily incorporates folk elements.

Wilhelm Stenhammar produced an important and

varied body of work. His Violin Sonata is a work that

reflects the ideals of his German education: it is absolute

music without any explicit extra-musical narrative

content, a 'synthesis of classicism and sensitive poetry',

as his first biographer put it. Sara Wennerberg-Reuter is

the least-known of the three, and many of her scores

remain unpublished. Stockholm's only female organist

with a permanent position, she left behind a varied body

of work spanning a wide range of styles. She distanced

herself from her contemporaries with a musical style

that focused on melody, a commodity she felt had by

then become scarce.