Britta Byström’s music tells stories and builds structures, all from the clearest and most evocative of ingredients. Her ear for colour and her willingness to be led by instinct are both apparent on the new album Letter in April, documenting Athelas Sinfonietta’s enthusiasm for the Swedish composer.

The album will be released on 17 March. You can already now pre-save the album to your streaming service via this link. In addition, a single from the upcoming album will be released on 3 March, that is a Grazioso movement from the string quartet Images from the Floating World.

Inspiration from art and literature

The new album contains world premiere recordings of four ensemble and solo works. The title work Letter in April for clarinet, violin, cello and piano circles around themes of love, loss and the almost imperceptible transformation that suggests the coming of spring, inspired by the Danish poet Inger Christensen' collection Letter in April.

Baum in der Stadt for solo violin, which in 2020 won the so-called Swedish Chamber Games, is recorded by Anne Søe.

The title was influenced by names given to his own paintings by Paul Klee. In the composition, Byström works from an almost architectural approach, rooting the work in a clear motif (or ‘building block’) that is heard right from the start.

In 2019, Aarhus Unge Tonekunstnere commissioned five Nordic composers to write a reflection on the Icelandic Njals saga for the Taïga String Quartet. On the new album, one can hear Byströms contribution, that is the string quartet Images from the Floating World in six short movements each with a musically instructive title, from the gentle and lyric to the swinging and rhythmical.

Cellist Maria Isabel Edlund is solist in the cello concerto Figures at the Seaside, the title taken from a surrealist painting by Pablo Picasso. The concerto is written for and developed in close collaboration with Edlund. In the work, Byström combines the human-scaled voice of the cello with a small, versatile ensemble, taking as her starting point the cellist’s playing style and her relationship with the music of Bach.

Textural luminosity and weaving melodies

Britta Byström's works are characterized by a sparse elegance, a stern playfulness and a minimalistic tendency to spin out entire works from a single entity
– a theme, a shape or a chord. Byström's first work (2002) established her interests in high tessituras and textural luminosity, often with circular weaving melodies apparently born from within.

Britta Byström has written operas, orchestral and vocal works and reflected on big existential themes from psychological disorientation to climate change
and the challenges faced by the Sámi population of the Nordic region’s far north.

Release concert and artist talk

The new album will be celebrated at a release concert on Tuesday 21 March at 16-18.00 in Musikhuset København. At the event, the music will be introduced by Britta Byström and publisher Jonas Bille Gamkjær from Edition Wilhelm Hansen, after which Athelas Sinfonietta will perform a selection of the works from the album. Admission is free. Read more here (in Danish).