A demo from the time when the symphony was composed:
Symphony I
(Commissioned and first performance: 6th Feb. -98 by the
Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, cond. Joseph Swensen)
There was a time when I regarded the symphony as my musical
form of expression with some sceptisism. However, things
turned out to be different and the way my music developed
through the years seemed to be logical towards the moment I
was starting on composing my first symphony. Gradually
approaching epic forms, I have already written music within
this form in ¨Sinfonietta¨and in the Organ Concerto, which
is also titled Sinfonia Concertante.
What also seemed to be attractive to me by the symphonic
form was the possibilty to work with large scale musical
form, almost like architecture in music; to balance
different musical ideas, energies, stretched out in musical
time and meaningful context.
And the challenge? The challenge was to believe in the
strength of the most important symphonic element - the
melody. The melody has been regarded almost as taboo in
musical modernism and therefore something exciting to
re-explore. It was a long path to reach the insight of the
need to have courage enough to write melodies which can
carry the musical forms and ideas to symphonic arches.
Listen (mp3) with samples from the
score