Wondrous Days - Roaming About The Snasa Heights, Jämtland

September is a good time to visit "our" Jämtland cottage, owned by close relatives. Autumn with all its colors comes early here. And all mosquitos, horse flies and gnats that usually make summer visits an unnerving and painful experience: all dead and gone by now.

Our place lies half way up in Sweden, which means a solid 1000 road km from Gothenburg, 700 km from Stockholm (see map below). Naturally, you don't drive up there every second weekend...

Cabin in the making, logs are windfall from the Gudrun storm in 2005

Besides recreation, there was a purpose for our visit. For years the space in the cottage has been insufficient to accomodate all interested relatives during popular times, mostly around Easter when the skiing is at its best. Thats why construction of a separate cabin has been going on for more than a year now. This fall the goal was to get the grass-roof in place before winter strikes. And we did it.

For me, not an expert builder, there were plenty of opportunities to get up into the Snasa Heights, barely a 10 min drive from our place. One morning I tuned in our classical station while driving. Some kind of modern piece was heard, a lot of strings, not exactly easy listening material, not very romantic either. But very vibrant and assertive. At the same time, the first glimpses of the landscape were stunning, partly shrouded in drifting veils of mist. Suddenly the music jelled into something like nature's own voice for me. Not one voice: many voices, neither in harmony nor in disharmony. Goose bumps.

At the parking area I grabbed the camera and was to dash off for pictures, yet for a while I couldn't tear myself from the radio and the music. It was still going and no announcement of title and composer had been made yet. I couldn't stay long enough to find out. Later I went up and down and sideways through Youtube for String Quartets and such. I listened to Shostakovich, Stenhammar, Schoenberg, Webern, Philip Glass, Alban Berg, Schnittke, Dvořák, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Philippe Manoury, Mieczysław Weinberg. Learned a lot, but never found the exact piece for my planned image show. I finally chose Salonen, an outstanding Scandinavian composer/conductor. He is also someone drawn to experimentation, like blending classic instruments with electronic techniques. Some of that can be heard in the soundtrack.
After selecting excerpts from Salonen's Cello Concerto Nr.2, I learned that the piece was very recent, receiving its premiere in Chicago, March 2017. This version was recorded by YLE, the finnish Radio and TV system, in Helsinki in August 2017. You might find it on Youtube.