I was recently commissioned by the Church of Sweden to compose an piece for strings tailored to be the opening music for an All Saints Day concert at the Haga Church in Göteborg, where the main event of the concert was the international premiere of Matthew Coleridge’s beautiful Requiem from 2016. I love when you get such a distinct assignment: you know the purpose of the music. So, in this case I wanted to write a passionate, melodic and beautiful piece that would open the ears and minds of the audience, and while hopefully being emotionally affected by my piece, also prepare for the following program (which also featured pieces by David N. Childs, Max Richter and Richard Strauss).

There is a special reason behind the dedication to maestro John Williams, the composer who ignited my interest in film music. I was not able to attend the premiere of Nostalgia as I finally – for the first time since 1996 – would have the opportunity to see Williams conduct his music live in Europe, at the Musikverein in Vienna with one of the greatest orchestras in the world, the Wiener Philharmoniker. As it turned out, the Williams concert was canceled but on that night, my piece was supposed to have been performed at the very same time as the Williams concert and it simply seemed appropriate to dedicate my string piece, which perhaps is inspired by Williams’ music to a certain extent, to my big hero.

The music was performed beautifully by a group of six players who invested a lot of emotion and careful movement in the piece: David Bergström and Lars Kvensler (violins), Emil Jonasson (viola), Lars-Erik Persson and Christoffer Bergström (celli) and Thomas Allin (contrabass), conducted by Ulrike Heider.

After I had finished writing the piece, I wrote a small poem to accompany the composition:

An outburst of tears,
a reminiscence of beauty,
perhaps… too pathetic a memory?
No, it is not.
Call it what you want.
It is profound.
From darkness again,
light. Always in eternity.

Sometimes social media actually works. A couple of years ago, film composer Boris Elkis (who worked on films such as Riddick, Walking Tall, Aeon Flux and A Perfect Getaway) posted a beautiful, spiritual poem on Facebook called “The Silent Watcher”. The text resonated with me, and I approached Boris to ask for permission to set the text to music, having in mind an a cappella piece for concert and service use. It took some time before I got it right, but the piece was finished last year and finally premiered by the Haga Motettkör conducted by Ulrike Heider in concert on June 17, 2018, in Helsingborg. Here is a recording of the performance and below are the beautiful lyrics by Boris. Thank you for allowing me to set this to music, Boris!

My God, My Love, in me you dwell.
Your love flows from your infinite well.
Help me remember all that I am.
Help me break through illusory dam

We don’t know all of your mysteries.
We dwell within you for all history
I look at the faces of people I know
I know that you’re there behind of it all

The silent watcher who is never asleep
He watches and tends to all of his sheep
He knows all the secrets and holds all the keys
He craves the sweet nectar from all of his bees

He knows all the words before they are sung
He knows all the deeds before they are done
He feels our desires, our pains and regrets
He suffers and pays for all of our debts

No moment goes by when he does not try
To get us to feel his presence up high
To get us to see the beauty within
To hear his whisper pulse through our skin

My Love, My God, to you we’ll return
Your fire’s ablaze and I’m feeling it burn
My Love, My God, in you we will die
So you can take us back to the sky