Niklas Rydens

The Swedish trumpet-player Niklas Eklund, born in Göteborg (Gothenburg) in 1969, trained at the School of Music and Musicology of Göteborg University. Further studies took place under the tutelage of Edward H. Tarr at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. After five years as solo trumpet with the Basle Radio Symphony Orchestra, he left the orchestra in the autumn of 1996 to further his career as a soloist. Since then he has appeared with leading ensembles and conductors such as Zubin Metha, John Eliot Gardiner, Heinz Holliger, András Schiff, Robert King, Eric Ericson, Reinhard Goebel, Gustav Leonhardt, the London Baroque, the Bach Ensemble (New York), the Drottningholm Baroque Ensemble and the English Baroque Soloists.

As one of the leading Scandinavian pianists, the award-winning pianist and composer Niklas Sivelöv has taken his career to new international heights with an extensive catalogue of recordings for such labels as BIS, Caprice, Dacapo, Naxos, Toccata Classics and AMC Classical, some of which have been awarded the Diapason d’or, CHOK and the Penguin Rosette. His concert career spans four continents, including venues such as the Leipzig Gewandhaus, the Barbican, Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, Tivoli Copenhagen and the Atheneum in Bucharest. This release features three of his own compositions, all Piano Concertos. He performs as soloist alongside the Malmo Symphony Orchestra and Livgardets Dragonmusikkar.

Swedish maestro Joachim Gustaffson's dream has come true in his capacity as chief conductor of the Bogotá Philharmonic Orchestra, which recently released the album “Beethoven Piano Concertos”. This first disc of Ludwig van Beethoven, of three to be produced in total, contains the “Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major (Op. 58)” and the “Violin Concerto and Orchestra in D major (Op. 61)” –version for piano, written by the composer himself–, as part of an unprecedented project in the history of Colombia.

Listen as Niklas Willén teases the skittish polka (No. 6) from Alfvén's 'The Prodigal Son' ballet suite, or steers his players through the vehement fugue that rounds out his Symphony No. 2, and you'll appreciate why this release commands unreserved praise. Ireland's NSO gives superlative performances, worthy alternatives to Neeme Jarvi's coolly efficient Royal Stockholm Philharmonic accounts on BIS. These works come to life in Willén's hands. For example, he infuses the third section (a festive march) of the ballet music with the requisite proud swagger, while the national dances that follow are engagingly characterised.

The selections begin with the Festival Overture, a somewhat blustery, bombastic piece that, nevertheless, makes a good, rousing curtain raiser. So, it works in the capacity for which the composer doubtless intended it. Maestro Niklas Willen and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra give it their all, and if one doesn’t expect something more substantial, it does its job.

Popper was not only one of the most outstanding cellists of his time, but also contributed a number of superb compositions to cello literature. On this new release for CPO, Wen-Sinn Yang masters the challenging playing technique to the highest level.

Hugo Alfvén (1872-1960) tends to be thought of as a ‘one-work wonder’, known only for his Swedish Rhapsody No.1, ‘Midsummer Vigil’. This disc, the fourth in Naxos’s series of Alfvén recordings, ought to change that. The Festival Overture is an exuberant curtain-raiser but the Fourth Symphony, composed in 1919, is a truly wonderful work. Its programme, hinted at in the subtitle ‘From the Outermost Skerries’, was described by the composer as ‘the tale of two young souls. The action takes place in the skerries, where sea rages among the rocks on gloomy, stormy nights, by moonlight and sunshine…the moods of nature are no less symbols for the human heart.’

The melodious Andante is the longest of the four movements [of Alfvén’s Third Symphony], deftly written and beautifully performed (particularly by the RSNO’s woodwinds and their delightful contributions). The piece enjoys an expansive climax, given all the space in the world by Willén.

A gifted musician, writer and watercolourist, Hugo Alfvén is regarded in his native Sweden as the most significant composer after Berwald. The Fifth Symphony occupied Alfvén throughout the 1940s and 1950s, and draws on themes from his ambitious 1923 ballet The Mountain King. The first movement has sometimes been performed on its own, but the symphony is relatively rarely heard as a whole. The Andante religioso is Alfvén’s arrangement for harp, celesta and strings of an intermezzo from his Revelation Cantata, Op. 31. This disc completes the Naxos cycle of the complete Alfvén Symphonies.