Dear friends and music-lovers…
We’ve been waiting for this… to be back here in Leksand with Hildasholm’s Musiken, opening our hearts to you our audiences, and exploring the joys of music together. We learnt a lot from our first Covid-infected year, and I hope that you’ll all feel the energy! A brief personal thought: for me, and all musicians unsurprisingly, music-making is, of course, a crucial and essential element in our lives, and this not just because it is our living. But it is also much more….“Classical music” is such a stiff, limiting term for this phenomena that covers such astonishing ground and sound from all over Europe, and since many centuries.. and which is only built up on apprenticeship!
A child grows up from a tiny tot with an extraordinary sensitivity; the ears waiting to explore sound, the hands ready to build muscle memory, the intellect and the emotions linking into the brain. This finding the pulse, the time, and harmony – coming together with different voices, is what we are seeking to build and integrate into the Festival. This is why we are so happy and excited to be working with the Falun Musikkonservatorium, the Falun and Leksand Kulturskjola, and with the Leksand schools and kindergarten…
But the three pillars of the Festival- will be our concerts in Åhls, Djura and Leksand Kyrkar: At Åhls Kyrka we open with Bach, the universal and ever-present composer, as a context for our programs- his music unites all times! With a selection of the Goldberg Variations, arranged for string trio, we take off in our concert that boldly spans three centuries by continuing with solo pieces for the string players, e.g. a stunning new Swedish piece for viola solo written by the young Ylva Fred who is swiftly rising to recognition, where violist Mina Fred will sing along with herself on the viola! We also include a beautiful Pastorale from the screen music to the award winning “Babette’s Feast” by Danish composer Per Nørgaard, and a “Bel Canto” by Poul Ruders. The program concludes with a dark and stormy String trio by Beethoven.
The second program in Djura Kyrka contains Bach too, one of the six sonatas for violin and keyboard, a piece that gives energy and joy. We shall also explore a completely different side of Beethoven, a small Piano trio movement that is gentle, lilting – in a rare moment of serenity for Beethoven. We shall conclude the evening with Robert Schumann’s Piano Quartet – the Romantic composer to the core – which bows to Bach, but is also conceived as a love song for his beloved wife Clara.
In our last concert at historic (and acoustically wonderful) Leksand Kyrka, we “Go fishing!”
The theme is water- sensing the mists of Böhmen in the Janacek piano pieces In the Mist. Gondoling on the canals of Daniele Rinaldo’s native Venezia in violin/piano pieces by Malipiero, and then being blown over by the doublebass virtuosity of our Latvian maestro performing Vasks´ Bass Trip.
We end the festival with the eternally beloved Forelle Quintet by Franz Schubert.
We’re looking forward to meeting you all. Welcome!
Elisabeth Zeuthen-Schneider
Artistic Director
June 2022
