Mikael Edlund

Solo for violin
Jord
Blue Garden
Music for Double Wind Quintet
The Lost Jugglery

Mats Zetterqvist
Kroumata Percussion
Ensemble Trio Mats
Boel Adler (mezzo)

Caprice CAP21447

A musician who comes from the world of jazz and pop, Mikael Edlund reacted to modernism with The Lost Jugglery (1977).

That, the earliest work here, though the last track, involves wordless singer with instrumentalists. The disc begins with a violin solo piece which carries you with a variety of unpredictable sequences, and invites you to listen again. The attractive booklet includes a page of each score.

The whole collection grows on you. The Music for Double Wind Quintet is "perhaps a divertimento"; Jord (which inspires the cover image) is a percussion piece which starts with letting gravel fall between the fingers and builds up to numerous metal and skin instruments combining for "something of a ritual, my most poetic work to date" [Edlund].

Unique music by a composer I hope to explore further - perhaps with a musicologist reviewer to augment my few words. Distinguished dedicated performers, all vividly recorded.

Significantly, this was receive for review shortly before I was asked to petition that Caprice be not brought towards closure in the current financial crisis...

Peter Grahame Woolf