Elegance and an Awkward Waltz

In this chamber music series, we meet our Philharmonic musicians in a more intimate format. It’s a space where members of the orchestra come together to perform their own favourite programmes – shaped by curiosity and filled with musical discoveries from both past and present.

Here, they highlight composer Bo Linde from Gävle, whose lyrical and spirited music gained wide attention during the 1950s and 60s. His Violin Concerto is perhaps his most well-known work, combining a dreamlike atmosphere with outward energy and drama – qualities also found in his Divertimento for flute, cello and piano. The Royal Stockholm Philharmonic’s principal flutist Andreas Alin is joined by cellist Josef Alin and pianist Peter Friis Johansson, who in 2024 released an album featuring the music of Linde.

The concert opens with the Sonata for Flute and Piano by French composer Mel Bonis, written in the early 1900s – a work of poetic feeling and late-Romantic colour. The same could be said of Alfred Schnittke’s stylistically multifaceted music. In this masterful piano quintet, shifting moods flow seamlessly from darkness to light, and at times a touch of wry humour appears in the form of an awkward waltz.