While Louis XIV saw himself as the “Sun King”, Christian X of Sweden styled himself the “Sun of the North” or indeed like the summer Scandinavian sun, “the sun that never sets”. Ironically, Christian’s sun did set relatively quickly; his reign lasting only five years from 1654 to 1660. Like his famous predecessor Christina, he maintained a cosmopolitan feel to his musical establishment with a mix of French, German and Italian artists.

Led by the intrepid musical explorer Sebastien Daucé, Ensemble Correspondances lives up to its name here by delving into the intersections between various baroque styles, with a particular interest in lamentations, spurred by its previous recordings of works by Heinrich Schütz and Dieterich Buxtehude.

For most of the 17th century, music at the Stockholm court was overseen by Gustav Düben, from whose collection much of the music in this recital comes. Düben had a special friendship with German Franz Tunder who was organist of the Marienkirche in Lübeck, a post later held by Buxtehude whose fame spurred the young Bach to make a pilgrimage there on foot. 

Düben arranged the music of Tunder and...