The Linné Quintet Strindberg and the Archipelago

About the Performance

The Linné Quintet:

Alexander Lindh, trumpet, Paul Hägglöf, trumpet, Elinor Berg, horn, Birgitta Lagerstedt, trombone, Alexander Skylvik, tuba

Reading: Actors from Strindberg’s Intimate Theater

Music

Tor Aulin: Four Watercolors (arranged by Sébastien Holmström Borén) Evert Taube: So Shimmering Bo Nilsson: from Amatista per madre Tua Maria Gunnar Hahn: Walking Tune from Ovansjö Alice Tegnér: Where Does All the Beauty Come From?

Welcome to August Strindberg’s archipelago idyll!
A concert featuring beautiful music and readings of texts that showcase Strindberg’s great love for the archipelago. It became a source of inspiration for his literature, drama, and art.

The Linné Quintet performs music by Strindberg’s close friend Tor Aulin. He regularly participated in the “Beethoven evenings” that Strindberg hosted, where they listened to and discussed Beethoven’s works. Aulin also taught Strindberg music and composed incidental music for several of Strindberg’s works, most notably for the play Master Olof from 1908. For this occasion, the Linné Quintet has commissioned musician Sébastien Holmström Borén to arrange Tor Aulin’s beautiful “Four Watercolors” from 1899 for brass quintet, originally written for violin and piano. The versatile composer Bo Nilsson has been featured in the Linné Quintet’s repertoire on several occasions, both with his beautiful songs and his more modernistic works. In 1970, Bo Nilsson also composed the music for the TV series The Red Room, based on Strindberg’s novel. In this concert, the Linné Quintet performs Nilsson’s Ametista per madre Tua Maria for brass quintet from 1980.

Two years ago, the Linné Quintet presented the program “Inferno.” Through text and music, the audience experienced a dark and stormy period in Strindberg’s life, as his autobiographical book “Inferno” depicts a time of psychological and religious crisis. In this program, we encounter a brighter existence; instead of anxiety-filled texts from a Paris hotel room, we hear about the idyll of the archipelago. Yet even here, we find Strindberg’s reflections on life and humanity, as in Strindberg’s third book “By the Open Sea.” It takes place in the archipelago, following Inspector Borg, whose pride leads to psychological breakdown when he faces the isolation and hardships of the outer archipelago.

Since 1986, the Linné Quintet has been a dynamic presence in Swedish musical life. From its inception, the ensemble has focused on renewing the Swedish repertoire for brass quintet, resulting in some fifty premieres of Swedish music. The Linné Quintet is a county music ensemble at Music in Uppland, where their assignments are diverse, ranging from concerts in schools and healthcare facilities to major celebrations and public ceremonies, or concerts in concert halls and collaborations with other artists.

The performance is a collaboration between Strindberg’s Intimate Theater and Music in Uppland.

Information