"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.

The Stockholm-based composer formed his ensemble Skogen in 2005, seeking "to integrate experiences, methods and materials from various traditions of improvised and composed musics into a new modus operandi." Holde Träume was originally written for the Nattens inbrott quartet: Vilde Sandve Alnaes (violin), Inga Margrete Aas (double bass), Magnus Granberg (prepared piano), Erik Carlsson (percussion). The first disc presents this 44-minute version, while the second expands to 45 minutes with Skogen as septet, adding Anna Lindal (violin), Leo Svensson Sander (cello), Stina Hellberg Agback (harp), Henrik Olsson (objects, friction, piezo), and Petter Wästberg (objects, contact microphones).

Granberg uses Schubert's rhythmic structure from the song's final line but avoids extensive quotation. Instead, the song's materials serve as point of departure: rhythmic cells recombined, tonal structures transformed. The composer notes there's "so much improvisational input" that the two realizations, while identifiably his music, barely reveal themselves as the same piece. Both recorded at Atlantis Studio, Stockholm in November 2021, they explore Granberg's distinctive territory: music hovering between composition and improvisation, unfolding with profound patience.

Granberg also realized, by chance after completing the piece, that Nacht und Träume titles one of Beckett's late, minimal television plays, where the song's last line is first hummed, then silently sung. The connection to Beckett's wordless theater adds another layer: music about dreams returning, performed by ensembles whose improvisational input makes each realization unique yet recognizable, like memory itself.

The album includes superb artwork by Magnus Gramén (titled Art or Life? for the cover, Urban Life for the interior). Granberg's music, broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and 6, Germany's SWR 2, Sweden's SR P2, continues his exploration of time, fragility, and sonority. Self-taught as composer, he works primarily with Skogen and his newly formed Skuggorna och ljuset, while remaining active as clarinetist-improviser.