Eskil Hemberg – Songs and Chamber Music

One of the compositions on this CD, the string quartet from 1973, was previously issued by Caprice on LP. The work gives us an affectionate, sophisticated and slightly ironical picture of the string quartet genre throughout its history (the title Zona Rosa is also the name of a wealthy district in Mexico City, a sanctuary that is not without similarities to the string quartet’s existence).

Other works on the CD include Four Lyric Poems for solo soprano. Hemberg has here provided both the text and the music. The soloist is Solveig Faringer, who also sings Like lively strawberries in flock, accompanied by Erik Lundkvist on the organ. The latter spiritual concerto is a setting of a text by Marie Louise Ramnefalk.

Canti di luce e di stelle illuminates poems by Pär Lagerkvist, translated into Italian by Giacomo Oreglia. Here Solveig Faringer is accompanied by the pianist Nanette Nowels-Stenholm.

In Les Adieux, Hemberg’s second string quartet, we hear the Vilna Quartet. ”…in the earth” combines seven prose passages from the immigrant epic Giants in the Earth by the Norwegian-American O.E. Rölvaag. The mezzo soprano Ellen Andreassen is the soloist and the pianist is Gustav Asplund.

Finally, we hear Solveig Faringer and Nanette Nowels-Stenholm once more in Five poems on the sea and summer with texts by one of Hemberg’s favorite poets, Harry Martinson.