Songs of Carl Michael Bellman

Carl Michael Bellman is the supreme writer of sung poetry. In his songs he creates on the one hand a picture of lightness and grace and on the other a scenario of despair, drunkenness and cynicism. It is a combination which even today holds his fellow Scandinavians in thrall from the cradle up. A Bellman concert is still, nearly 200 years after his death, sure-fire box office; moreover, although his images are dense, his verses thick with classical allusion, his choice of melodies refined, and the speed of his thought bewildering, his appeal is universal; everybody in Scandinavia knows and loves Bellman.