Through The Looking Glass – Lynx Ensemble

On the chamber folk music ensemble Lynx’s debut album Baroque Tales, the ensemble reworked folk music from Hälsingland into Baroque arrangements in the ‘galant’ style – a style situated between the Baroque and the emerging Viennese Classicism.

Whilst Baroque Tales primarily explored Hälsingland’s folk music and the Baroque, on their new album Through the Looking Glass Lynx focuses on the encounter between various composers and bearers of tradition. These encounters and reflections between Swedish folk tunes and older Baroque and Classical music form part of an exploration of the musical threads linking these traditions.

For example, Lynx allows the polska Norsken, based on Hultkläppen, to dissolve into the second movement of Georg Philipp Telemann’s Concerto à 4 (TWV 43), which is set during the Christmas season, accompanied by cowbells and a couple of well-hidden Christmas carols.

The ambition is high, and the project is incredibly interesting and superbly performed by the musicians Linnea Aall Campbell on violin, Anna Freiman on nyckelharpa, Netta Huebscher on recorders, Nora Matthies on baroque cello, and Avinoam Shalev on harpsichord, organ and piano.

The end result, however, feels somewhat tentative; it is music that seeks its place in hybrid forms, somewhere between something that might be perceived as frozen in time. Lynx’s music is not frozen, but it does demand a certain gallantry.

Lynx Ensemble is a musical project that brings together Baroque and folk musicians in a unique chamber music constellation of traditional and historical instruments. The group explores Swedish folk music whose roots go back to the 17th and 18th centuries, reimagining traditional tunes as elaborate pieces of folk-chamber music.