Pontinen/Stenhammar Quartet - Ingmar Bergman: Music from the Films

Ingmar Bergman made fifty films, directed more than 150 theatre productions and wrote several books, but the recurrent thread running through his life was music. Bergman�s interest in classical music became evident early on in his career. Music in Darkness (1948) is about a pianist who loses his sight, To Joy (1950) features a violinist who dreams of a solo career and Summer Interlude (1951) takes place at the Royal Swedish Opera. He admired all who could perform music, reserving his greatest love for pianists. One of Bergman�s favourite Swedish pianists was Roland P�ntinen, who here performs a number of pieces featured in Bergman�s films, by composers including Mozart, Chopin and Schumann. P�ntinen is joined by the Stenhammar Quartet in the second movement of Schumann�s piano quintet, used by Bergman to great effect in the award-winning Fanny and Alexander. Another of the director�s favourite performers, the cellist Torleif Thed�en, also contributes to the project, with the sarabandes from three of Bach�s suites for solo cello.