FRI 4.8.

Carl Michael Bellman (1740-1795) is one of Sweden's best-known poets; a rhyming virtuoso who wrote all kinds of poetry. He became particularly famous for his drinking songs, which were published during Bellman's lifetime as 'Fredmans Epistlar' (1790) and 'Fredmans Sånger' (1791).

The trio Markus Pelli and Pentti Hildén, with soprano Anna Ruotsala, have put together a concert programme that takes you into Bellman's world and era. The music seduces you to surrender to the pleasure of the moment, to the realms of Bacchus and Fröja (Venus of the North). The summer pastoral idyll is the setting for mythological characters, and the occasional light-hearted mood is darkened by Karon the raftsman, reminding us that life is just a loan.

In Bellman's time, Finland was part of the Swedish Empire, so the songs are also part of a shared past. The songs in Swedish interspersed with the Finnish translations by Achrenius, Gottlund, Hirviseppä, Kupiainen and Ryömä paint a picture of the history of Bellman's songs in Finland from the 1700s.