Welcome to my channel! I'm a Swedish pianist, organist, and harpsichordist. New videos (almost) every Saturday and sometimes more. Feel free to subscribe and follow me on Facebook!
This year's (2024) projects are: 1. A number of Swedish piano works 2. Completion of Vogler's 32 Preludes. 3. Proceeding with Reger's Op. 135a and Buxtehude's chorale works. Plus all sorts of things. Please check out all my playlists, and keep updated!
MID WEEK BONUS!🎁 A beautiful and somehow autumnal canzona by the dear Gottfrid Berg.🍁Canzona means song in Italian, and here two voices sing in dialogue, soaring high above the pedal part like two birds. And for some reason, the more vivid middle part makes me think of birds in flocks, on their way south for the approaching winter.🐦🐦🐦🍂 Maybe you see something else? Hope you like this little gem, and as always -don't forget to click the thumbs-up and subscribe!😃
And now some incredibly lovely French piano music by the fascinating Lili Boulanger!🇫🇷✨She was a very promising child prodigy who spent her entire life with chronical illness and sadly passed away already at the age of 24, leaving behind a short list of excellent works of vocal, orchestral, and chamber music. At age 16 she decided she wanted to be composer, and already at age 19 she was the first woman to win the prestigious composition competition Prix de Rome.🥇The winner would spend some time in Villa Medici in Rome, and that’s where she wrote these pieces, that are really musical images.🎨The first one, "From (or 'of') an old garden", has a very attractive mix of melancholy and light, so typical of Lili. The second one, "From (or 'of') a clear garden" is a sunny waltz that gradually slows down and disappears into a daydream… And the third, a happy and likewise sunny Cortège with a brilliant ending.🌞Listen, and let your imagination flow! Lili’s older sister Nadia Boulanger was also a composer, and spent a long life as very important professor of composition. Now, as always, don’t forget to click the thumbs-up and subscribe!😃
MORE Buxtehude!😍😍😍This pretty little gem of a piece is based on the chorale "Keep us, Lord, faithful to your word", which is a prayer to God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit to protect us from our enemies and for peace on Earth.🙏In Buxtehude’s days those enemies were more specifically mentioned as the "murderous Pope and Turks" (the Reformation still wasn’t so far away, same for the Ottoman Empire)…!⚔These days the text has been changed to enemies in general, but a prayer for peace on Earth is still needed, nothing has changed there…🕊Hope you like it, and as always - don’t forget to click the thumbs-up and subscribe!😃
Once again I’m returning to Buxtehude’s wonderful music.😍This time a small partita, small in the sense of having only two verses, but still great music!✨The hymn text isn’t very up-lifting, so I’m not going into details about that, but instead into the music: The first verse presents the hymn tune relatively unadorned in the left hand, but then there is the second verse, where the tune is wildly embellished, beyond recognition…!💥Despite the melody having a very small range of only six notes, Buxtehude here lets the right hand use almost the entire compass of the keyboard. North German Baroque School at its best!🤩Hope you like this little gem, and as always - don’t forget to click the thumbs-up and subscribe!😃
Just like other places in Dalarna, Älvdalen has 'produced' several beautiful hymn melodies.🎶Despite the singular title, this "Hymn from Älvdalen" actually consists of two melodies: First (and last) a horn tune which eight years after this composition became part of the Swedish hymn book with the words "Pärlor sköna, ängder gröna", and in the middle a hymn from the village Blidberg (which I believe is the same as modern day Blyberg) in the southern part of Älvdalen, which I haven’t been able to find any words to. None of these should of course be confused with the "Gammal fäbodpsalm från Dalarna", more specifically from Åsen in Älvdalen, made famous and beloved through Oskar Lindberg’s setting. Since Älvdalen is just a little over an hour away from where I live, I decided to record it in Älvdalen Church, and - on a side note - I decided last week that I would try to get some atmospheric autumn photos while up there.🍂🍁Instead, summer came back in full glory, and I ended up with bright blue sky and sunshine and an amazing sunset over the river Österdalälven which cuts through the municipality (Älvdalen = River valley in Swedish).🌞🌄Not bad either! Now as always - don’t forget to click the thumbs-up and subscribe!😃
This year Arnold Schönberg would’ve turned 150 years old, one of the most influential composers in the early 20th century.🎵He’s most famous for creating his twelve-tone technique, but these pieces predates that by 12 years. Schönberg lived in a revolutionary time in music history, where harmony got more and more advanced and its traditional rules gradually dissolved.🌫Several composers felt they had to leave tonality altogether, and the result can be heard here.🎵Schönberg composed his first atonal music already in 1908, in some songs and the 2nd string quartet, but here he not only abandons tonality - they range in length between 25 seconds and 1,5 minutes, extremely far away from the most large-scale and bombastic late-romantic works of the time, and long melodic lines have been substituted for melodic fragments, if any melody at all. He wrote the first five in a rush of inspiration in one day in February 1911, and added the last one, with its shimmering pianissimo chords, after learning about Gustav Mahler’s death in May that same year.🪦Now, I think these little gems should be thought of as a tasting menu - six small dishes with flavour combinations you never would’ve thought of, which should be enjoyed with an open mind.🍤✨They make me think of the opening words from that 2nd string quartet, sung by a soprano: "Ich fühle luft von anderem planeten - I feel air from another planet"…🪐 The portrait in the beginning of the video is a self-portrait from 1910.🎨 As always, don’t forget to click the thumbs-up and subscribe!😃
Berg plays Berg again…!🎹I really like the music of Gottfrid Berg, not only because of his beautiful surname😅I just love his very personal tonal language, it’s so well balanced somehow.⚖I’ve hereby completed his five chorale partitas, this one is on the hymn "Befall i Herrens händer", a beautiful melody from the 16th century written in the Dorian mode, which makes it sound very old and with a hint of folk music. The tune is first presented in a simple 2-3 part setting, followed by three variations, of which the second is my favourite with its gentle dance like character, serious and playful at the same time.💃Hope you like it, and as always - don’t forget to click the thumbs-up and subscribe!😃
Last week I posted one of Buxtehude’s 'smaller' settings on the splendid hymn of praise "Nun lob, mein Seel, den Herren", but here’s now a more large scale version in three parts, or 'verses'.🎶In the first verse we hear the melody (relatively) unadorned accompanied by a weightless left hand part that seems inspired by the jumps and runs of a squirrel…!🐿😅The second verse with three voices I chose to play on the Regal stop, imitating an instrument popular during the Renaissance, having such a unique and evocative sound.✨Then there’s the third verse, which is nothing short of joyfulness and grandeur!🎆The hymn tune is here played by the feet.👞Hope you liked this, and as always - don’t forget click the thumbs-up and subscribe!😃
It's Buxtehude o'clock again!🎶'My Soul, now Praise thy Maker' is a hymn of praise, and Buxtehude seems to have liked it since he made no less than four settings of it for organ. This is the shortest and 'lightest' of them, played on the crystalline Principal stop which sits in the façade of the choir organ, situated behind the organist's back in this organ. No pedals.👞Hope you like this little gem, and as always - don't forget to click the thumbs-up and subscribe!😃
Tack till två skickliga musikanter 🙏 Uppskattar verkligen er båda, men Michael Axelssons tenorstämma får mig "att glömma att jag själv finnes till", för att citera Dan Andersson 🍀 Noterar att Michael inte följer texten exakt, utan sjunger en mer rytmisk text 👍
Hej Kerstin, nu har du ju fått svar "live", men för andra som också undrar finns den alltså inte utgiven än. Originalet, tillsammans med flera andra Nordqvist-original som Michael räddat undan förgängelsen, återfinns på Stiftelsen musikkulturens främjande nydahlcoll.se där man fota av manuskriptet. Eller så mejlar man till info@michaelaxelsson.se så kan man nog få en kopia!
Now that we’re in the later part of summer, the stars have returned at at night.🌌So let’s listen to a wonderful song by Gustaf Nordqvist, set to equally wonderful words by Pär Lagerkvist (taken from 'Evighetsland'): "Star falling in the summer night, fill my soul with your light. Give me a glimpse of the enigmatic treasure, gathered in your heavenly house. Fall through my soul like a stream with your divine commandment. Wonderful and late is your hour, the message from your God." 🌠 As always - don’t forget to click the thumbs-up and subscribe! 😃
I haven’t played any folk-music in ages, so now it’s time: a wonderful, life-affirming, happy pill of a polska (a dance tune) from Boda, one of few that were written down after a woman fiddler, Furuboms Britta in this case!🙋♀🎻 Hopefully this sunny tune will chase away any rain clouds, and hopefully it will brighten up your day a little!🌞And as always - don’t forget to click the thumbs-up and subscribe!😃
