Lars Gunnar Lars Gunnar Bodin

Following on from Callirhoé (André Cardinal Destouches), Sémélé (Marin Marais) and Proserpine (Jean-Baptiste Lully), three important tragédies lyriques rescued from oblivion by Hervé Niquet and Le Concert Spirituel, Glossa is now restoring to the catalogue and within its collection of French Baroque opera, a recording made in Metz in December 2001: Daphnis et Chloé, the work which was to add Joseph Bodin de Boismortier to the roll call of the history of music in a most determined fashion.

Bror Gunnar's brand new release is what one could call True Crime Music. Many of the songs are based on known criminal investigations and most of them from Sweden. One case in particular was indeed literary close to home. With a knife killer breaking into people's home on the same street where Bror Gunnar lives. The title song is based on the gruesome murder of Catrine da Costa in 1984. Where the Police found the remains of a woman in a couple of garbage bags ditched by the side of a road in the outskirts of Stockholm. All body parts were found except for the head, and the perpetrator was never found.

Joseph Boismortier was a French Baroque composer who had to live by his wits, having no patrons or prestigious positions. The notes for this CD quote Jean-Benjamin’s assessment in 1780: “Happy is he, Boismortier, whose fertile quill each month, without pain, conceives new airs at will.” Boismortier, for lack of a better answer to his critics, would always answer: “I am earning money.” His four Ballets de Village are rustic suites that make extensive use of the musette and hurdy-gurdy, instruments considered country cousins, not to be used in “serious” music. Boismortier writes for them with great skill; the droning din they set up is most appealing.

Bendik Hofseth is a Norwegian jazz musician, who plays the saxophone and sings. He is also a bandleader, and arranges and composes music. When Bendik Hofseth went to New York in 1987, and replaced the world famous saxophonist Michael Brecker in the band Steps Ahead, it probably came as a surprise to many. A youngster from Lørenskog, Norway in the jazz capital of New York, lining up for one of the most renowned jazz bands in US. Along with Steps Ahead, he has toured world wide several times since 1987.