Alfvén: Festspel / Suite from Gustav II Adolf / Rautavaara: Cantus arcticus (SACD)

Hugo Alfvén was a talented writer, painter, musician and composer. Born in Stockholm in 1872, he first studied at the Royal College of Music (Kungliga Musikhögskolan) and then in Berlin, Dresden, Paris and Brussels. Influenced by Wagner and Richard Strauss, Alfvén's style is also influenced by Swedish folk music. The festival play was commissioned in 1908 for the inauguration of the new Art Nouveau building of the Royal Dramatic Theater (Kungliga Dramatiska Teatern) in Stockholm. The work is suitably rousing and festive for such an occasion. in 1932, Alfvén was asked to write incidental music for a play by Ludvig Nordström to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the death of the Protestant Swedish monarch at the Battle of Lützen at the end of the Thirty Years' War. The resulting suite is an extensive work in its own right. Cantus arcticus is probably Rautavaara's best-known work and was commissioned by the University of Oulu in northern Finland in 1972 on the occasion of its first official doctoral ceremony. However, Rautavaara was inspired by the nature of the region and integrated two-channel tape recordings of birdsong into the orchestral structure.