Soprano: Cecilia Alrikson
Piano: Terés Löf

1. Escape at bedtime (text: Robert Loius Stevenson)
2. The more loving one (text: Wystan Hugh Auden)
3. The angel (text: William Blake)

Recorded live at Västervik Chamber Music Festival August 14, 2020.

Some have said that this may be the best pieces I have written all together. Whether that is true or not I leave to others to decide. But writing these songs I was very inspired, not least by Liza Lehmann, whom I had just discovered at the time, and her wonderful song cycle "The daisy chain" where she too sets Stevenson's Escape at bedtime, although her song is called Stars.
Inspired by her writing I set the first two songs in this cycle within two days in the fall of 2014.
The final song, set to a poem from Blake's "Songs of experience" is written in a more Schumannesque fashion, with the odd feature of starting in Major and ending in Minor.
All together, the three songs represent the protagonists relation to the night from childhood, through adolecense and old age, starting off rather naive but gradually becoming more serious and ending with an outburst. 

Three nocturnal songs Op. 11 (live performance)

I am a music teacher at Oskarshams Folkhögskola, where I teach classical singing, composition, music theory and chamber music. 
I am also a singer with primarily art songs on my repertoire, a hobby composer and poet and a founding member of the Mönsterås Jazz and Chamber Music Society.
I studied composition at Ingesund College of Music and Baroque counterpoint at Uppsala University and mostly write vocal music for song and piano, and/or choir but eventually compose for other instruments and ensembles as well.
I have been called "a radiant talent in finding the essentials in different musical styles" (Arvika Nyheter, December 4, 2006) and regional news paper Barometern wrote that my music shows "good insight in choice of melody and harmonic part writing" (September 25, 2012).
My music has been performed in Austria, Canada, England, Germany, Sweden and USA.

Notable works are:

"Three nocturnal Songs Op. 11", song cycle of three songs for soprano and piano. Premiered by Cecilia Alrikson and Natalja Shakova in Oskarshamn, Sweden in 2018.

"Night songs Op. 6", song cycle of five songs for baritone and piano. Premiered by Anthony Schneider and Rosemary Barnes in Vienna, Austria in 2013.

"Ave Maria - String quartet in d minor Op. 12", string quartet in three movements. Published by Gusthold Music, USA in 2020.

"Av hjärtat, sjung! Op. 22", cantata in five movements for STB soloists, SATB and childrens choir, string quartet and piano. Comissioned for the opening concert of the four day festival "L'Esprit - upplev 1700-talet" (L'Esprit - Experience the 18th century) in 2020.

"Joie de vivre - Piano sonata No. 2" Op. 23, sonata in four movements for solo piano. Composed in 2020.

"Jaktsonaten - Violin sonata No. 1 Op. 13", sonata in four movements for violin and piano. Composed in 2016.
 
I have been published by:

Gusthold Music Publisher (www.gustholdmusic.com) 
- String quartet in D minor "Ave Maria Op. 12" (May 2020)

Flauto d'Amore Editions
(www.flautodamoreproject.com)
- Danza, for Flauto d'Amore or C-flute (June 2020)

Psalmportalen (www.psalmportalen.se)
- Three congregational hymns (Herre Gud, vi lovar dig, När det känns som att allt ljus försvinner and Ett litet barn, Marias son) (Summer 2017)

I hope you will find something here to listen to that you will enjoy!

Photography for my profile image: Anna Broette

Three nocturnal songs Op. 11 (live performance)

David Unger | Composer