The jazz pianist and composer Stefan Forssén has an almost unique ability to create singable melodies. On his new cd he has collected no less than 24 such melodies, all of them with lyrics. These are compositions to poems by Swedish poets like Nils Ferlin, Lars Forssell, Lennart Hellsing, Pär Lagerkvist and Barbro Lindgren. Many of the poems are written by the composer himself, often humorous or about the nature.
Stefan Forssén’s songs are sounding somewhere in the borderland between jazz, ballad (what we in Sweden call “visa”) and “Lied”. They are here performed by soprano Susanne Ence, one of the members of Gothenburg’s Chamber Choir, and the barytone Olle Persson, one of Sweden’s most versatile soloists. The singer Britt Ling is heard on two tracks. Besides Stefan Forssén on piano you will hear a string quartet, the violinist Livet Nord, members of Forssén’s group Änglaspel and on one track Gothenburg’s Chamber Choir.