Mozart, Liszt, Hindemith, Eklund, Stenhammar: Piano Works

Lars Roos (b. 1945 in Kvarnsveden) is a name in the Swedish music industry that almost needs no introduction. Without hesitation, he can be regarded as one of the country’s most versatile and productive musicians, who for more than four decades has enchanted his audience and his listeners with his skilful piano playing. With a solid education at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm and Juilliard in New York, and after at the beginning of his career mostly devoting himself to the monumental works of classical music, in the 1980s, Lars Roos began to carve his own niche as one of Sweden’s first high-profile crossover music artists, first as a house pianist in the TV program Kafé 18, and above all through his famous album series Örongodis (“Ear Candy”), which found its way into countless record players in all of Sweden. Throughout his career, Lars Roos has collaborated with an abundance of other of Sweden’s biggest music names, and accompanied many of the nation’s greatest opera singers such as Nicolai Gedda, Elisabeth Söderström, Håkan Hagegård, MariAnne Häggander and, not least, Birgit Nilsson.

But before all this, not long after his debut on the Swedish concert stage in 1968, he was recorded by Caprice Records as part of a scholarship from the Concert Sweden organisation (Rikskonserter). The choice of repertoire fell on works by Liszt and Stenhammar, with which he had recently toured, and where reviewers gave the following opinions:

Lars Roos gave the impression that he improvised the pieces; bearing in every new sound, eventually gathering into purposeful culminations of immense intensity…

The encore – a Rhapsody by Liszt – blew out the walls in the hall… despite Lars Roos having a dynamic range that few Swedish pianists can compete with, his fortissimo is never raw or brutal. It just feels grand, free and lovely.

Caprice Records’ own editor and executive producer for this debut album, Gunilla Sandsberg-Saulesco, noted that, There are many who consider Lars Roos to be one of the most talented and promising young pianists in recent years in Sweden. With the result in hand, one must state that she hit the nail on the head!

Recorded at Sveriges Radio, Studio 3, 29-30 Nov, 1970.
Executive producer, Rikskonserter: Gunilla Sandberg-Saulesco
Recording producer: Håkan Elmquist
Recording technicians: Sylve Sjöberg and Ola Kejving, Sveriges Radio
Graphic design: Gunnar Erkner, Sofia Berry
Photo: Konny Domnauer
Executive producer: Erik Hamrefors