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Letters from Scandinavia
£14.99
In stock
Catalogue Number
CRD3551
Letters from Scandinavia is, I hope, an adventure… It certainly has been for me in creating it. It began with a chance stumbling on Mary Wollstonecraft’s Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway & Denmark, written on the cusp of the nineteenth century, at a time when most of the rest of Europe was almost entirely ignorant of the ‘wild north’. I soon discovered a treasure trove of historic travel writing about Scandinavia, which I duly devoured. It has grown into something between a song recital and a historical audio travel guide, I suppose. A weaving together of music and text as it follows in the footsteps of women journeying to nineteenth-century Nordic countries for the first time. The music is drawn from a rich vein of song by composers and interwoven between the songs are new texts inspired by colourful and evocative nineteenth-century travel writing. I’ve had the huge pleasure of working with composer Peter Facer to bring these texts to life with new music to underscore the spoken word. I’m grateful that my fellow traveller is pianist Sholto Kynoch, who first introduced me to Backer Grøndahl’s works a few years ago, and who plays this repertoire so beautifully. Letters from Scandinavia is above all a love letter to all things Nordic. I very much hope you enjoy it. (Best served with a cinnamon bun…) © Joanna Harries
Manufacturer: Wyastone Estate Limited, Wyastone Leys, Monmouth, NP25 3SR
Email: sales@wyastone.co.uk
Reviews:
"This is an unusual and enchanting thing – not just an album but an embracing narrative experience that places often remote-feeling music in a palpable context.
Harries’ recitation of the 15 texts is underpinned by electronic sampling and piano music by Peter Facer, as deft and evocative as the best music for film...
...Her distillation of the diary texts into miniature narratives has to be the finest achievement here, making for a vivid and charming capturing of the northern wilds at a particular time in European history... The result is knowingly twee and absolutely captures a moment, one echoed today in the continued mutual incomprehension, lined with guarded respect, that traverses the North Sea.
Almost as laudable is the selection of songs, each bang-on in mood and geography (well, almost) for the cumulative journey we’re on. Stenhammar’s ballad ‘Jutta kommer till Folkungarna’ (Op 37 No 1) is well told by Harries and her singing betrays her love for works by Agathe Backer Grøndahl (1847-1907), the economy of whose ‘Til mit hjertes dronning’ and unbound playfulness of ‘Skjærer’ speak of her qualities as a composer. It’s a testament to Harries’ archaeological diligence that the songs by Munktell and Netzel sound even better, notably the latter’s Runeberg setting ‘Säg mig, du lilla fogel’. Grieg... stands head and shoulders above the rest, even more so given his familiar songs breathe differently in Harries’s illuminating context (even the two plucked from the tight narrative cycle Haugtussa).
Harries is a good, intimate storyteller whether speaking or singing and shows an essential trust of the silences and open spaces in this music." Andrew Mellor, Gramophone
“Joanna is now a fervent evangelist for Scandinavian song; it really shines through in these performances... vivid storytelling… 'meticulously researched' and 'brilliantly executed” BBC Radio 3, Record Review
"Harries and Kynoch claim Scandinavian song as a space of its own cultural identity within the European genre of kunstlied. The album, evocative and intimate, is interested both in interpretation and in its contribution to culture: it recovers forgotten composers, presents a little-recorded repertoire and frames it in a coherent historical narrative." Marçal Borotau, Sonogram Magazine