GRAND GUIGNOL is based on a form of theater that was born at the Théâtre du Grand Guignol in Pigalle district of Paris in the nineteenth century. These groundbreaking and popular plays served to awaken their audiences from the ho-hum of everyday life through the telling of upsetting, frightening, seductive, carnal and hypnotic stories that were considered too risqué for upper society theatrical circles.

Anna von Hausswolff and Mikael Karlsson have composed a piece for the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Swedish Radio Choir that celebrates the uplifting powers of the shadow-side of things, and which – in a Grand Guignol tradition – embraces stories and sonorities that stem from places and topics that we instinctually avoid. There, around the intersection of a physical, ritualistic music and the tantalizing attraction of the darkest stories exists the GRAND GUIGNOL.

The piece employs pulsating intensity and waves of alternating calm and aggression to create a space that promotes intense emotionality and a renunciation of sensorial control. It embraces horror and beauty on equal terms – an aesthetic that signifies the previous music of both composers.