Sundsvalls Tidning 190515
By: SUSANNE HOLMLUND
We have all our spring signs, milestones for believing that spring is here. In Sundsvall, it´s not just Walpurgis night, but also highly Caprice – this year for the incredible 52th time.
REVIEW This year, it was extra sold out in Tonhallen and a Caprice that didn´t emphasize spex highly. No costume numbers, very little props – here the joy, the humor and the seriousness were musically (…)
An important reason for the audience success was certainly the guest artist. Helen Sjöholm is and remains the musical queen in the Sundsvall citizen’s life. Absolutely well deserved: she has so much core and feeling in her voice, she is so ultra-musical and has such a line in her phrasing that she can sing an almost stagnant song like Ögon känsliga för grönt (Eyes sensitive to green) completely free without ever losing the direction.
Her song goes straight into the heart; for me, the concert’s most emotional feature was Kristina from Duvemåla’s wonder if God exists, but Helen Sjöholm is also a comedian who can perform a burlesque song directly from the farm hand chamber and challenge Kjell Lönnå on the old tragicomic song about Märta and Ture who love each other from each side of a lake.
By her side was Martin Östergren, skillfully not least as a jazz pianist with nice rhythmic pace. He was also her singing partner and accordionist when needed. In the first section of the choirs, many older spring songs, with sound waves from the KFUM and a women’s choir with wonderfully powerful, golden and bottom-sounded sounds, were welcomed. When all three choirs get into O hur härligt majsol ler with amazing crescendi, you shudder with pleasure. The chamber choir offered two of my favorite spring songs by Peterson-Berger and a Month of Maying that vibrated with spring joy. Stjärntändningen was a nice Swedish lyrical song that stuck out with its pinch of modernity. And one can be calm because lovely, floating pianissimon is still one of the chamber choir’s specialties.
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Towards the end, the temperature was turned up with dance music, pop, songs, jazz classics; everything from Bach gavottes to Gnesta-Kalle schottise to gospel swing, klezmer or the string music’s old three-chord songs that in choir version become powerful mountains of music. There are no individual stars in the choir; the community is the star. That´s how spring joy is spread.
(The entire review is not reproduced for copyright reasons)