Search - Johan Soderqvist :: After the Wedding

"In a land long ago, and far, far away..."

Catherine S. Todd | Oxford NC, USA | 09/01/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Who is Johan Söderqvist? Here is the little I could find about some of the most moving, brilliant and beautiful music I have heard in years (and I hear plenty, all day and night it seems). This is outstanding. Highly recommended. I can't say enough about the haunting glacial beauty of some of these tracks, and can't wait to hear more. FIVE STARS.



* * * * *



From his website: johansoderqvist dot com

"After the Wedding" up for Oscar

Johan Scores Award Winning Documentary

Johan finishes work on solo CD





Johan Söderqvist - film composer

Latest news: Johan S-derqvist wins UCMF Award in Cannes - Score for 'Exit' Recorded - Johan S-derqvist scores 'Walk the Talk'



Johan Söderqvist (Soderqvist) is an award-winning film composer whose music has been heard in films

such as Brothers and After the Wedding directed by Susanne Bier.



* * * * *



I find his incredible compositions on 3 CD's listed on Amazon, from someone I have never before heard of.





1. "After the Wedding" soundtrack (2007), track 11. "Animals On The Wall" from this CD:



The sound of a ship traveling across far waters to a land that I knew far, far away and long, long ago. There is no review for this CD, but it seems that Soderqvist is a composer in the classical vein that reaches for the heavens and plucks the stars and moon. I can't get enough of this music, and have put together the little info I could find.



This sound has moved me like no other. The composition and instrumentation is as I was many years ago, when I could listen with my mind's eye and play with a brush of angels wings. Long long ago and far far away, in a land I have loved where I long to go.





2. "Brothers" by Leo Svensson, Jesper Winge Leisner, Johan Soderqvist, James Shearman, and Mattias Torell (Audio CD - 2005) - Soundtrack



See the review on Amazon for "Brothers" (seems to fit with "After the Wedding," in part:



"Composer Johan Soderqvist combines classic European and traditional Middle Eastern music as the backdrop to Susanne Bier's complex and passionate film. Brothers is about the relationship between two brothers (Ulrich Thomsen and Nikolaj Lie Kaas) and the aftermath when one brother comes home after being held prisoner in Afghanistan. The orchestral score music was recorded in London with members of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by James Sherman."





3. Classical: "Substring Bridge" 8. Epilogue, for guitar & chamber orchestra (from the film Dubbel-8)

Composed by Johan Soderqvist

with Mats Bergstrom

Conducted by Jonas Dominique



I will have to try all three. This music takes me as close to the Divine as I have been in a long, long time. Grace be to God and the rest of us on High. We pass through a Material Wasteland with a light at the end of the tunnel... Clear and Clean for all to see. This is vision of silence and sound. Would that I could hear more. Taste more. Touch more. And Learn to See.



Who is this musician and composer that can play to the Heavens and the Gods down Below? To the Dark God and to the Light? Lifting us from the depths of despair with the sounds of octaves and the plucking of strings? Who is this one we cannot see and do not know?"