Traumreise

Traumreise (Dream journeys) consists of nine lieder written in Swedish, French and German by Franz Berwald (1796-1868), originally composed for voice and piano. The first and most well-known begins: “Outside, the summer wind blows/in the lime tree the cuckoo calls”. Many of the others on the other hand were long forgotten, until rediscovered by soprano Lisa Larsson in the library of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. She made a selection and then asked Malmö-based composer Rolf Martinsson to combine and orchestrate the lieder into what Martinsson describes as an “orchestral song cycle”. The result is a dreamlike journey between moods, stories and languages. The work was performed in Zurich in November 2018.