I had the great pleasure this past weekend to perform in two different Swedish Christmas Oratorios: one on Saturday, in Ösmo Church south of Stockholm, the other back home in Härnösand Cathedral. The two concerts were separated by more than 500 kilometres geographically, and the two musical works were separated chronologically by almost 90 years.
Back in September, I was approached by a church musician at the parish in Ösmo who had listened to the recording of my two Tranströmer Songs and had enjoyed both the compositions and my performance. She wanted to engage me as a soloist for their performance of a Christmas oratorio for mixed choir, two soloists and ensemble, composed by her colleague at the parish, Katarina Rudérus. Initially, she was unaware that I live quite far from Stockholm, but she must’ve really wanted to engage me since she was willing to cover my travel expenses as well.
I knew already back in September that accepting this gig south of Stockholm on December 14th would result in that weekend becoming quite packed, as the Cathedral Choir in Härnösand had their Christmas concert planned for December 15th. But planning well in advance solves not everything, but many things, and as this all happened back in September, the logistics were fairly easy to handle. The concert on the 14th went quite well and the packed church gave enthusiastic, well-deserved applause afterwards. Ruderus’ oratorio was the main event of the concert, with a couple of smaller choral pieces preceding it.
One night’s sleep and several hours behind the wheel after the concert in Ösmo – unfortunately, there were no trains for me to take, so I had to drive both ways – I found myself in Härnösand Cathedral, trying to recalibrate myself for actually performing four different functions in one concert: Besides singing in the choir, I was the narrator and tenor soloist in our performance of Hilding Rosenberg’s Christmas oratorio, composed in 1936. Additionally, I had one a cappella piece to conduct, myself, and ahead of the concert I had arranged one of the pieces performed and even written the programme note.
The concert in Härnösand also went swimmingly. My dear friend Per, who is the co-dedicatee of Lacrimosa, was also named Härnösand’s new Cathedral Organist last week, effectively making yesterday’s concert a sort of début for him in his new function. While I am of course obviously biased, I think I can safely say that the great success of the concert was in large part thanks to his wonderful conducting and musical interpretations. Not only the music itself but also us performers were in steady and firm but also encouraging hands (literally and figuratively speaking!).
Looking back on the past weekend, it feels like a pleasure and a privilege to have performed two different Christmas oratorios, both by Swedish composers, and both quite different not only by chronological distance but also in terms of style and approach. Rosenberg’s oratorio is dramatic, effective, showing his penchant for theatre and film music but also with shades of his Modernist leanings. Ruderus’ oratorio is more sprawling, containing both almost traditionally Disney-like sections as well as some harsher or more rhythmically driving parts.
And the week before last, I sang with the Erik Westberg Vocal Ensemble in a delightfully luxurious Christmas concert in Sundsvall with the Nordic Chamber Ensemble. The first half of the programme was a mix of Swedish and English Christmas hits, with John Rutter’s Magnificat making up the second half (along with Swedish Christmas staple Jul, jul, strålande jul as the encore). That concert in particular made me realise why I fell in love with many of these well-worn Christmas standards in the first place. Erik Westberg, a dedicated, meticulous interpreter, made these pieces much more than simple routine but actually brought out the brilliance in them that made them beloved in the first place.
Meanwhile, renovations have been continuing steadily since my last post a month (sic!) ago. It turned out that the foundation needed a lot more reinforcing and replacing of old and decaying parts. Filling out most of what unoccupied time I had left in my schedule, it took until early last week to get all the ground work done, and invaluable help from the carpenter whom I originally bought the house from back in 2019.
I really have not been able to keep up with the blog recently. (At the same time, I’d rather post more seldom, but have interesting stories to share, than post regularly but fill the blog with nonsense.)
I already have another post planned for next week, so there will be at least one more update before the end of the year. Perhaps even two, but I’m not making any premature promises.
Regardless, I have some very exciting news to share, so you will want to make sure you stay in the loop. Remember that you can subscribe to get these blog posts straight to your inbox. I won’t share or sell your address, nor will I send you anthing except these blog posts; think of it as an old-school newsletter.
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