THE COMPOSER
”The music by Tommie Haglund transforms the world in which we exist. Colours deepen, sensibility expands – it is as if our innermost being is turned inside out. A different kind of listening begins after having heard that music, a new world takes shape”
Erik Wallrup, music critic Svd.
When it yet again is time for a Haglund Festival in Halmstad a wonderful opportunity to take part in an open community is thereby presented.
The participation arises even though we may not know each other at all, but we enter into the same sonorous rooms, experience its continuous transformation and become in that moment ourselves transformed. Tommie Haglund has chosen to live in Halmstad whereas Swedish composers tend to take the more traditional path to live in Stockholm, even if Malmö and Göteborg also have career possibilities to offer.
But Haglund chose Halmstad when he was eighteen years old since he wanted to continue studying with the guitar teacher Bo Strömberg, who had moved there.
The first dwelling was a tiny basement room, close to where he now resides – although now he lives in a house with fresco murals by the painter Erik Olsson amongst others. The grand piano is in the centre of the living room. A composer’s home.
Tommie Haglund returned to Halmstad after his first trip to England in the early 1980s, where he studied with renowned guitarist John Mills, and after that some years in Aarhus at the music college. So far, the guitar was his focus but the urge to compose, already evident from around the age of ten, was constantly present and it finally took over completely. was constantly present and it finally took over completely.
With Intensio Animi 1988 he created a firm foundation for his music to come, like a pillar deep in the ground and high up in the sky.”
It is, in other words, exactly forty years ago, and during these four decades one work after another has been composed, usually one or two per annum. In other words, not an excessive production. The reason for this is Haglund’s very thorough and meticulous way of composing: no system pushes it forward, only the ability and intuition of combining musical imagination and intention, the process starts off with a few fragmentary sketches, but in that lies the extreme concentration of the essence, a selection of sounds, a few chords, a movement. Towards the completion, the entire work is in his memory, evolved, emerged.
The quality of the works are extremely high – Haglund can therefore easily fill a whole festival with both varied and cohesive music.
Apart from the symphony, commissioned for the composer weekend at Stockholm’s Concert Hall 2019, the festival includes two of Haglund’s most extensive works: the violin concerto Hymns to the Night and the cello concerto Flamins Aura. A number of solo pieces create a counterbalance together with chamber music for various ensembles.
Get acquainted with the world of Haglund. Dwell in it and notice how it slides in to your own world, which has been transformed.
Erik Wallrup, music critic Svd.
REVIEWS
Haglund is one of Sweden’s most individual composers with a philosophically founded hyper sensitive and colourful musical language that can make the listener feel an almost meditative intensification.
Flaminis Aura – BIS CD review: This is the kind of music that makes you believe there is a future and relevance for contemporary music… Unique and powerful music, stunningly played and recorded – a disc of the month and the disc of the year for me.
QUOTES ABOUT TOMMIES MUSIC
Tommie Haglund is one of Scandinavia’s most distinctive and visionary composers.
To hear his music is like being in a strangely sonorous cosmos, where darkness is most present, but also a life-giving, indomitable light.
His genius lies in capturing human experiences and expressing them through a very distinctive, contemporary tonal language that is both deeply personal and deeply communicated.
As a composer, Tommie Haglund goes his own way, only true to himself. It easily becomes a subjective music, perhaps someone would dare to call it romantic, which goes directly into the listener, heart to heart.
HIGHLIGHTS
Tommie’s music is requested internationally and commissions come from for example USA, London, Vienna and the Swedish Radio
1988 | Intensio Animi
Tommie Haglund’s breakthrough with Intensio Animifor ‘cello and piano composed in1988. The composition was a commission from The Swedenborg Society’s commemoration of the theosophist’s 300-year anniversary.
2001 | Il regno degli spiriti
The string quartet Il regno degli spiritiwas composed by Tommie for the 30th anniversary of the celebrated Medici Quartet.,
for the 30th anniversary of the celebrated Medici Quartet., being premiered at the Cambridge Summer Music Festival 2001.
Elizabeth Pitcairn. Photo: Joy Strotz
2005 | Hymns to the Night
Tommie Haglund’s violin concerto Hymns to the Nightwas premiered with the acclaimed violinist Elizabeth Pitcairn and the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra. Elizabeth plays on one of the most legendary violins: the Mendelssohn Stradivarius from 1720, known as The Red Violin.
2014 | Guest Composer at Luzern Music Centre, New York State
In July and August 2014 Tommie Haglund was invited as Guest Composer at Luzern Music Centre, New York State , where he gave lectures, and seven of his works received performances at three concerts. Ett av Tommies verk dedikerades till Delius minne: To the Sunset Breeze (harpa, gitarr, stråkkvartett) och andra verk som spelades på konserterna var Sollievo dopo la tempesta (stråktrio), Il regno degli spiriti(stråkkvartett), La Rosa Profunda (sopran, piano), Epilogue to Hymns to the Night (soloviolin) och Serenata per Diotima(stråkorkester).
Photo: Stefan Tell/Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award
Composer weekend, Stockholm Concert Hall
In 2019 the Composer week-end in Stockholm was dedicated to Tommie Haglund’s music.
At the opening concert the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra premiered Haglund’s First Symphony, commissioned by the orchestra. A composition 55 minutes long in duration and his most extended work to date.
