Video "Requiem" for Nyckelharpa and Double Bass

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... was commissioned by the Dutch conductor Josefine Straesser. 

One evening in October 2023, driving in her car she heard the Swedish instrument nyckelharpa on a Dutch radio channel for classical music. She was immediately captivated by the instrument. At the time she was performing research into the original Gregorian melodies underlying French composer Maurice Duruflé's Requiem (1947), opus 9. In the car she conceived the idea to incorporate those melodies into a new composition for nyckelharpa. 

She contacted Janine Buisman, one of rather few musicians who master the instrument in the Netherlands. They agreed to involve Henrik Holm (double bass) with whom Janine has a duo exploring the unique sonority which is characteristic to the combination of these two instruments. The conductor then turned to Anders Jallén who wrote this Requiem in close collaboration with her and with the instrumentalists. Among other things Jallén studied musicology at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden in the 1980's. His Professor at that time was Jan Ling, whose doctoral dissertation (1967) was on the nyckelharpa. So there is an element of a circle being closed, here.