Magnus Granberg
The Willow Bends and So Do I
This hour-long ensemble piece from 2024, recorded in Stockholm, marks the twelfth album by Swedish composer Magnus Granberg on Another Timbre. Granberg, born in Umeå in 1974, studied saxophone and improvisation at the University of Gothenburg and in New York, but is self-taught as a composer. He formed his ensemble Skogen in 2005 to integrate experiences, methods and materials from various traditions of improvised and composed musics into a new modus operandi. Apart from his ongoing work with Sk…
Holde Träume, kehret wieder!
"Sweet dreams, come back!" The title, the last line of Matthäus von Collin's poem set by Schubert in 1825 as Nacht und Träume, suggests longing for night's return upon waking. Magnus Granberg's 2021 composition takes Schubert's song as departure point, fragmenting its rhythmic phrases into tiny cells and extracting tonal structures to create a new modal framework. The result exists at the intersection where composition meets improvisation, realized here in two versions across this double album.
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How Lonely Sits The City?
*2023 stock. 250 copies limited edition* Composer/improviser Magnus Granberg, who lives in Stockholm, has presented outstanding composed works through Skogen, the ensemble he directs, and experimental music ensembles, projects and labels from around the world. He has released three CDs on the Meenna label: "Whose Words?"(meenna-983 / 2017), documenting a trio improvisation performance with Tetuzi Akiyama and Henrik Olsson; and two albums titled "Come Down to Earth Where Sorrow Dwelleth" (meenna-…
Evening Star, Vesper Bell
Evening Star, Vesper Bell by Magnus Granberg with Apartment House is a nearly hour-long meditation bridging composed structures and improvisational nuances. Drawing on remnants from Schubert and Cole Porter, the ensemble crafts an intricate tapestry of sound, embracing openness, patience, and detailed interplay. It is a work that rewards repeated, attentive listening and the discovery of subtle, shifting textures.
Night Will Fade and Fall Apart
"As I perceive it, in much of Magnus Granberg’ work, going back as far as projects such as Sheriff, there’s an in-drawing nurturing of self. However one may read the beautifully poetic, frequently melancholic nature of the titles of the pieces, this is far from a flattening of the nature of existence but rather a celebration of the interior life of the individual, both of the composer and his growing, attentive, audience, accumulated over time due to a remarkably consistent series of releases. T…
Come Down to Earth Where Sorrow Dwelleth
Magnus Granberg is a composer/musician living in Stockholm. Through experimental music ensembles/projects such as his own group Skogen (which he has led since 2005), Ordinary Affects, Ensemble Grizzana and Insub Meta Orchestra, he has produced outstanding works revealing new compositional possibilities. Performances of his compositions have been released on various labels, chiefly the UK’s Another Timbre. Granberg has earned a great deal of international attention and critical praise. In Novembe…
Let Pass My Weary Guiltless Ghost
Let Pass My Weary Guiltless Ghost marks another chapter in Magnus Granberg’s ongoing exploration of the borderlands between improvisation and quietly radical chamber composition. Granberg draws from his background in saxophone and deep engagement with traditions spanning classical, folk, and the avant-garde, establishing a musical language marked by reserved urgency and gentle abstraction, performed by his dedicated ensemble Skogen.
The recording is structured to allow strings, clarinet, piano, …
Nun, Es Wird Nicht Weit Mehr Gehn
Nun, es wird nicht mehr geh’n is a quietly arresting work that places Magnus Granberg at the forefront of contemporary, post-Feldman chamber composition. Written for and performed by Skogen, Granberg’s long-running collaborative ensemble, the album develops over extended durations, favoring a distinctive blend of improvisation and composed materials. Drawing inspiration from literary and musical ancestors - including the haunting lyricism of Olivier Messiaen and the structural clarity of Morton …
Es Schwindelt Mir, Es Brennt Mein Eingeweide
Es Schwindelt Mir, Es Brennt Mein Eingeweide ("I’m Dizzy, My Viscera Burns") finds Swedish composer Magnus Granberg refining his art of meditative ensemble writing in a single long-form work. Drawing inspiration from Schubert’s "Die Winterreise," Granberg selects and processes melodic fragments, filtering them through his unique syntax of open-form composition and collective improvisation. Rather than direct quotation, the references to Schubert are spectral: shuffled and stretched, turned into …
Early To Late
Early to Late presents an inspired commission for Magnus Granberg and Jürg Frey, inviting each to compose for Ensemble Grizzana using the same brief: build a new work from Renaissance fragments. Granberg’s “How Vain Are All Our Frail Delights?” draws on William Byrd’s choral music, transforming melodic kernels into shimmering, spectral textures. Ensemble voices - celesta, glass harp, dulcimer, violin, winds - float through cycles of open-form improvisation and carefully weighted silence. The res…
Whose Words ?
Guitarist Tetuzi Akiyama is an influential improviser who performs inside and outside Japan and has numerous CD releases on Japanese and overseas labels. The five tracks on this CD are improvisational performances by the trio of Akiyama and Swedish musicians Magnus Granberg and Henrik Olsson, studio-recorded when Akiyama visited Stockholm in November 2013. Magnus Granberg is active as a composer through projects such as his own ensemble, Skogen, and as an improviser using mainly the clari…
Nattens skogar (version for four players)
For the first time available here on vinyl, Magnus Granberg music has gain a good reputation through the years and his excellent serie of publications by the british label Another Timbre and his Skogen group. This time on a small, quartet, formation, Magnus Granberg, on prepared piano, and violinist Anna Lindal are joined by Cyril Bondi and d’incise, from the Diatribes duo and many more, whom where already part of the 10tet recording of “How Deep is the Ocean, How High is the Sky?” in 2015.“Natt…
How Deep Is The Ocean, How High Is The Sky?
Swedish composer Magnus Granberg (Skogen) places baroque instruments alongside prepared piano, objects and electronics in an exquisite 60-minute piece performed with an excellent set of performers including Cyril Bondi, d'incise, Eric Ruffing, Christoph Schiller, &c.
Would Fall From The Sky, Would Wither And Die
Skuggorna och ljuset is a quintet featuring Magnus Granberg (clarinet, composition), Anna Lindal (violin), Leo Svensson Sander (cello), Kristine Scholz (prepared piano), and Erik Carlsson (percussion). Their sole album, Would Fall from the Sky, Would Wither and Die, departs from Granberg’s larger ensemble Skogen. Without electronics, the sound is more chamber-like, each gesture and note given time to settle, bloom, and fade in a gently hypnotic field.
The work transforms the harmonic material o…
Ist Gefallen In Den Schnee
Ist Gefallen In Den Schnee documents a landmark collaboration between Swedish composer Magnus Granberg and his ensemble Skogen. Recorded in November 2010, this nonet features an expanded lineup including Angharad Davies (violin), Toshimaru Nakamura (no-input mixing board), and Granberg himself on piano. The title, borrowed from Schubert’s “Winterreise” (“Wasserflut”), signals the work’s reflective engagement with song cycles and memory. Granberg structures the piece using rhythmic and formal mod…