In search of Proust’s music

With music and reading, we head to the late-nineteenth-century salons of Paris. In Swann’s Way, the first book in Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, the fictional violin sonata by the equally fictional composer Vinteuil serves as the soundtrack to the repressed romance between Swann and Odette. Many people have speculated on the actual source of Vinteuil’s sonata, and some of the examples – César Franck, or perhaps Gabriel Pierné? – are included here. 

We also hear newer music by Kaija Saariaho, Morton Feldman and Jacob Mühlrad. A commission from the Swedish Proust Society to Jacob Mühlrad, which constituted the background of the programme, was developed into a complete concert, with music and a reading. Jacob Mühlrad was tasked with composing music with a connection to Marcel Proust’s writings. He chose to write a piece for solo bassoon, Transcendent Pitch, inspired by Proust’s thoughts on transcending time and reaching places and atmospheres of the past.

We hear Fredrik Ekdahl, section leader of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra’s bassoon section; Claudia Bonfiglioli, section leader of the second violins; cellist Kati Raitinen; and Stefan Lindgren, the orchestra’s pianist. Krister Henriksson recites texts by Proust. He is one of Sweden’s most renowned theatre and film actors, internationally known for his interpretation of Kurt Wallander in the tv series based on Henning Mankell’s crime novels.

This concert is a collaboration between Konserthuset Stockholm, the Royal Dramatic Theatre, and the Swedish Marcel Proust society.