Unlike his friend and contemporary‚ Sibelius‚ Stenhammar produced most of his incidental music in the last decade of his life. This was a time of consuming conducting commitments and failing health‚ which together prevented him from completing several large­scale projects. Yet what became a modest stream of commissions (over a dozen in a decade) afforded the opportunity for some surrogate creation of more extended works. Stenhammar lavished considerable care over the music for Strindberg’s A Dream Play‚ written for the inaugural production of Gothenburg’s Lorensberg Theatre in 1916. It contains marches‚ melodramas‚ choruses and interludes. In 1968­69‚ Hilding Rosenberg created a concert fusion of many facets of this dream­like score‚ part melodrama‚ part symphonic picture. The music certainly deserved saving‚ though non­Swedish speakers may find the spoken passages (full text provided) in its first half distracting. The sound of hunting horns permeates the score for Shakespeare’s As You Like It (1920)‚ the major offering here‚ from which over half the 24 numbers are featured. It is captivating‚ worthy of comparison with Sibelius’s best if less characterful and including some cheesy moments to early 21st­century ears (the chorus in track 10‚ for example‚ owing much to Berliozian brigands). There are many lovely solos‚ not least the Allegretto Interlude for bassoon. Similarly‚ there is a beautiful solo for oboe‚ ‘Petters pipa’ (lovingly executed by Carl Andersson)‚ in the five­movement suite Rosenberg prepared from the 1921­22 music for Romeo and Juliet. The Helsingborg orchestra play splendidly‚ Arvo Volmer shaping the music to perfection. Excellent sound‚ too. A superb disc – strongly recommended.