Monday 05 December 2016

The Edvard Grieg Choir takes part in the Christmas concert Denne sötte Christmastime, both as an ensemble and as soloists.

Vocal soloists, choir and orchestra offer an atmospheric and warm Christmas concert with well-known Christmas songs and a Swedish choral classic.

Bach's atmospheric Sinfonia from the Christmas Oratorio sets the tone for our Christmas concert where we will hear traditional Christmas carols and Christmas verses in new arrangements by the Bergen composer Ørjan Matre. He gives the songs an undertone of Nordic folk music and at the same time bakes the beautiful Bach chorale "Von Himmel hoch" into the arrangements.

Förklädd gud is a lyrical suite written in 1940 by the Swedish composer Lars-Erik Larsson, with text by the Swedish poet Hjalmar Gullberg. The suite is in neo-romantic style and is a beloved work in Sweden.

The text is taken from Gullberg's collection of poems Love in the twentieth century from 1933. The starting point is a motif from ancient mythology, but Gullberg's text goes deeper and has several interpretation possibilities. Defense for the weak is central.