The Rancher's Wager

Hymne a l'univers is an album on Opus 3 Records from acclaimed organist Mattias Wager, whose previous release on Opus 3 Records was the best-selling album entitled Organ Treasures. The Stockholm City Hall is known around the world for housing the Nobel prize banquet. It is also home to the largest organ in Scandinavia. On this spectacular instrument, with its 10,400 pipes, Mattias Wager plays French music from the Thirties. The music, by Alain, Jolivet, Bonnal and Duruflé shows the scope and sheer creativity of its time, and its feeling of boundless musical possibilities. With its wealth of sound, the Stockholm City Hall organ is one of the few instruments that make it possible to really bring out all the colors in this repertoire. Additionally this is the first real recording of this organ, even though it was built in 1926, 3 years after the Stockholm City Hall was opened to the public.

In 1741, the British warship HMS Wager crashed on the shore of an uninhabited island off the coast of Chilean Patagonia. One hundred and forty men reached land. Only thirty-six made it back home. The "Wager" Disaster is the extraordinary story of human endurance and the perseverance of those soldiers in the face of unthinkable adversity.