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Svensson plays Bach: Recorded at the Nybrokajen 11 Concert Hall in Stockholm, Sweden, August 10, 11 and 12, 2001. Produced by David G. Christensen MAGNUS SVENSSON Pianist Magnus Svensson grew up in a musical family in the forests of southwestern Sweden. His father Lars is a carpenter and amateur violinist and it is from him that Magnus found his love of classical music. But it wasn't until the age of 15 that Magnus began his serious piano studies. He gained wisdom and musical knowledge from professor Stella Tjajkowski at the Gothenburg School of Music. Tjajkowski remained his principal teacher until he graduated from the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm with a post graduate diploma in music performance as well as the honorary medal for best student in 1998. During his graduate studies, Magnus studied with professor Staffan Scheja as well as Dimitri Bashkirov. He also took classes in lied-interpretation for Geoffrey Parsons in London. Magnus has an extensive repertoire, with an emphasis on Baroque and classicism and has dedicated entire recitals to the works of Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Mozart and Schumann. His concert engagements have taken him to United States, Germany, France, England, the Netherlands, Italy, Hungary, Poland, Russia, the Baltic States and all the Scandinavian countries, including Iceland, the Faeroes and Greenland. Magnus' next CD titled 'Svensson plays Mozart' was recorded in December, 2002 and is scheduled for a Spring 2003 release. Svensson on Bach When one looks at the collected works of Johann Sebastian Bach one is impressed by Bach's incomprehensible productivity. How could one and the same man have had the time to compose so much splendid music, when he also taught, worked as an organist as well as an orchestral conductor? And many of his compositions are presumed lost. (Principally from the Cöthen period.) His several positions as organist kept him busy writing music for the entire church year and in addition he also composed for various courts, his sons, daughters and his wife, Anna Magdalena. He must have always had writing materials at hand, even when he was sent to prison, after a dispute with his employer in Cöthen! When he was finally released he had a large stack of newly written choral preludes and solo pieces.. Bach himself summed up his immense artistic achievement with the following somewhat condescending quote: ' I have worked hard. Those who work as diligently should achieve the same results.' Bach's Toccatas for the harpsichord belong to his most eccentric compositions; large-scale, brilliantly rhapsodic and choleric as they are. Each and everyone of these toccatas have their own structure, but they all have one, often two, fugal moments woven into frenetic passages. Toccata in D-major BWV612, starts cockily and a bit bombastic but soon finds a jovial theme with a contagiously cheerful tonal language, playful, yet not weightless. The happiness changes abruptly and is replaced by a fateful recitative that is reminiscent of Vivaldi. The fugue is fumbling, sad and on the verge of dejected. Little do we suspect the dissolution of the drama, with a second dangerously fierce fugue that culminates in an explosion of triads and we are reminded of the fact that the Toccata actually was written in major. Throughout his life Bach wrote choral preludes for the organ, both for Sunday services and for his teaching. They combine a rhetorical and expressive tone language with a refined counterpoint and play a large part in Bach's another works. The first choral prelude Nun komm' der Heiden Heiland, BWV659, is a magical piece of music. It's an advent hymn with lyrics by Martin Luther: Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland Come now, Saviour of the heathen Der Jungfrauen Kind erkannt He who is known as the Child of the Virgin! Des sich wunder alle Welt, All the world wonders that Gott solch Geburt ihm bestellt. God should ordain such a birth Throughout the whole work there is a suppressed and mystical
