Marie Samuelsson

Picture: Mats Bäcker

Marie Samuelsson studied composition at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm 1987-95 with Sven-David Sandström, Daniel Börtz and Pär Lindgren and later for George Benjamin. 2001 she complemented her studies at Ircam, Paris. She has had many works commissioned and performed in Sweden and abroad. 2003 the cd Air Drum was released and won wide critical acclaim in the media. She was elected to the Royal Swedish Music Academy in 2005. 2007 nineteen of her pieces were performed at a four days festival with the Royal Philharmonics in Stockholm.

Samuelsson’s’ music has often been characterized as both directly physical and with quotes such as “music with strong poetic expression” and “with an omnipresent sonorous and rhythmic flow.”
Some important works are Singla for orchestra, commissioned to the festival with the Royal Philharmonics in Stockholm -07, Sorgestråk (Paths of sorrow) for Islands Caput ensemble, Fear and Hope for orchestra and Bastet the Sun Goddess – Concerto for violin and orchestra, performed on several occasions by Anna Lindal.

The concerto’s first part has long lines, softly waves composed as like the music slowly rotates around an axle. Further on in the piece the music gets more impulsive and varies through strong expression and more low-voiced, rhythmic almost improvisatorially variated parts. An oriental glissando motif returns in the violin. The violin part is very virtuosic. Bastet Solgudinnan was commissioned by the Swedish Radio and The Swedish Concert Institute.

My thoughts about the solo concerto in general have much to do with the Bastet Solgudinnan Violin Concerto for Anna Lindal. In this concerto I was inspired by the thought of the violin wandering around in a soundscape (the orchestra). The soloist is like a discoverer or explorer over a drama in melodic fragments, with sound material and sound comments in the orchestra. The solo part is virtuosic and though the concerto has dramatic points and tension, it is by no means an ongoing struggle with the orchestra.
The concerto is more about relations, and I focused on the total aspect of building a world of music. I think that the solo concerto can still be an interesting musical, very abstract metaphor for the solitary existence and life, asking questions about life and death that we all share.

web.comhem.se/marie.samuelsson/