Poem to a Distant Fire

The recording of this piece is available on Naxos Records. “This Swedish-born composer was something of a prodigy, composing music for various chamber ensembles and having a selection of them recorded by some of the top Swedish instrumentalists when he was but a mere 14. A guitarist since the age of 13, he has produced a number of highly individual works, not the least of which is this latest offering, which has the rather unusual scordatura of 3rd string to F#, the 5th to G and the 6th to the G an octave below the 6th string 3rd fret G! Written about a particularly vivid landscape he witnessed, wherein he immediately thought of a musical phrase, the opening is a tricky mixture of the natural note interwoven with artificial harmonics in such a way as to make going very difficult. Its marking of “Spacious” does little to alleviate the difficulty factor which is extremely high. Then a second idea base around a pedal point of Gs underpinning complex chord voicings leads to a section marked “Nocturne”, a melodic rubato in mostly two voices. At the final close the interwoven harmonics and natural notes rise up to an ethereal close. Beautiful though this is, the scordatura might put some of you off, and if not, be prepared for some real hefty work trying to master its mysteries, which are many and varied. Wonderfully prepared and printed.” Chris Dumigan (Classical Guitar Magazine)