Studio Playlist 0.6
- peter etherington
- Oct 25
- 2 min read
Updated: Nov 11
E.S.T. Symphony - 2016
I am obsessed with this recording. Absolutely obsessed.
Arranged by Hans Ek and recorded at the Stockholm Konserthuset with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, it takes some of the most striking tracks from E.S.T.'s back catalogue and gives them a symphonic makeover, transforming them into something even more haunting, dramatic, and atmospheric.
If you've never come across the band, E.S.T. were a boundary-pushing Swedish jazz trio fronted by pianist and composer Esbjörn Svensson, supported by Magnus Öström (drums) and Dan Berglund (double bass). Esbjörn died in a scuba diving accident in 2008 at the age of just 44, leaving the jazz world clinging to his recordings and wondering what might have been.
There was a greatest hits re-release, and a recording of his introspective solo-piano noodling, HOME.S, was unearthed and released in 2022, but the symphonic reworking of E.S.T.'s music sits on an entirely different plane.
The album's prelude opens with glistening woodwind that gives the sensation of wandering into a snowy clearing in a Scandinavian forest. But then, into the clearing comes some dark folkloric behemoth, striding to battle. Will you join them? It's almost like a choose-your-own-adventure book that's inviting you to enter (at your peril). Later in the same prelude, we tiptoe through another snowy clearing and arrive at a quiet thermal pool. The bearded behemoth takes his rest and consumes the restorative water, his power slowly returning.
And that's just the prelude.
What follows is a contemplative and dramatic retelling of some of E.S.T.'s monster tracks, spanning their finest albums. After listening to the symphony, it is informative to return to the original recordings of From Gagarin's Point of View and Seven Days of Falling to understand what the symphonic arrangement uses and what it omits.
I could ramble on about each track, but I'll let you discover them for yourself. However, I will say a word for the two suites, Wonderland and Vaticum, which condense entire E.S.T. albums into extended, free-flowing pieces of music.
With its orchestration and mix of whirling up-tempo brass, drums, and woodwind, Wonderland has a Broadway-like feel to it; something akin to A Chorus Line, though on a much grander orchestral scale. Vaticum is much more introspective, though not lacking in grandiosity. It almost feels like the score to an epic AAA computer game, building up layer upon layer of looming atmosphere and releasing you into one breathtaking cut-scene after another.
What struck me most in Vaticum is the space it leaves at times, space that begs for a piano to step into it, akin to a Mozart piano concerto. Alas, there is no piano. Whether intentional or not, hearing those yearning gaps reminded me that the pianist who brought us this music is no longer around to fill them.
If Esbjörn Svensson had lived, perhaps this wonderful recording wouldn't exist, but it would have been fascinating to see what he would have created in its place. The gaps will forever remain.
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