Christina of Sweden: A Sonic Portrait of a Queen

Christina of Sweden (1626–1689) was intelligent, passionate about the arts, highly educated, yet also nonconformist and eccentric: a truly singular queen who did not earn only admiration from her contemporaries. Today, the German Baroque ensemble NeoBarock offers a sonic portrait of her personality, bringing together music from her milieu (some of it recorded for the very first time) alongside readings from her autobiography. The recording is accompanied by a booklet of more than thirty pages, written with the flow of a novel. Here are a few selected excerpts.

**Maren Ries: Pallas Nordica —Christina of Sweden (1626–1689)** 

She did not fit the idealized image of a fairy-tale queen; yet it is precisely her nonconformist personality, her eccentricity and her carefully orchestrated provocations that continue to fascinate to this day. Christina was highly educated, a patron of the arts, and as monarch played a major role in the negotiations for the Peace of Westphalia. The daughter of a Swedish father and a German mother, she became not only Queen of Sweden, but—by virtue of the peace treaties of 1648—also ruler of Bremen, Verden, Rügen, Wismar and much of Western Pomerania. After ten years on the throne, she abdicated to lead an independent life and settled in Rome. This bold decision provoked both slander and tales worthy of a novel. Her unconventional lifestyle, at times considered scandalous, and certain decisions, difficult to understand even after nearly four centuries, gave rise to a reception ranging from Hollywood romanticisation with Greta Garbo to her elevation as an icon in feminist and lesbian movements.

But who was Christina of Sweden beyond the bare facts and idealizations of her life? What founded her myth as Pallas Nordica, able to attract the greatest thinkers of her time to Stockholm? Why did she renounce the Lutheran faith of her ancestors, even though her father had become a Protestant martyr? What drove her to collect works of art with such frenzy and to patronize so many musicians, despite recurring financial difficulties?

This sonic portrait seeks to trace the complex personality of Christina through contemporary documents, her own words, and what she loved above all: music.

The King is dead, long live the Queen!

For Christina, the seriousness of life began on 6 November 1632: full of confidence, King Gustavus Adolphus II of Sweden rode out to meet the Catholic enemy a few kilometres southwest of Leipzig; but at the legendary Battle of Lützen, the “Lion of the North” met his death. This popular statesman left to his barely six-year-old daughter a kingdom once insignificant near the Arctic Circle, which he had raised to the dominant power of the Baltic Sea through bloody struggles against Denmark, Poland and Russia. At the start of Christina’s reign, her territories extended beyond the Swedish heartland, encompassing present-day Finland, parts of Russia along the Baltic coast, as well as areas of Estonia and Latvia. A striking testament to Gustavus Adolphus’s power (and to his megalomania) can still be admired in Stockholm today: the Vasa. With this galleon, he planned to create one of Europe’s most powerful warships. Yet the exaggerated dimensions led to construction flaws, so that the prestige project capsized during its maiden voyage in the summer of 1628, sinking in the harbour. It remains difficult today to determine whether Gustavus Adolphus’s intervention in the Thirty Years’ War in 1630 was religiously or politically motivated. His death on the battlefield, however, inevitably elevated him to the status of a Protestant icon. 

The shock this event provoked across Europe is captured in Luigi Rossi’s Lamento della Regina di Svezia: it depicts the tragic moment when a gravely wounded messenger delivers the news of Gustavus Adolphus’s death to the Swedish queen. Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg, who often accompanied her husband on his campaigns, was at the time in Erfurt. From there she joined the funeral procession bound for Stockholm, indulging in a theatrical display of mourning. She kept the deceased king’s heart in a golden box, and it took nineteen months to persuade her to release the body, which had remained displayed in her chambers. Already not known for her sharp intellect, Maria Eleonora came to be seen as utterly hysterical and depressive after this obsessive mourning. Foreseeing this, Gustavus Adolphus had secured Christina’s succession early and stipulated in his will that his wife should have only a minor role in their daughter’s upbringing. To completely exclude her from the regency, the Swedish Council promptly exiled the dowager queen to Gripsholm Castle.

“She speaks French as if she had been born at the Louvre.¹“

According to Gustavus Adolphus’s instructions, Christina was brought up “like a prince.” In addition to fencing, shooting and riding, she was instructed in Swedish law and received a thorough humanist education. There was general relief that she did not resemble her mother; on the contrary, she proved to be a true intellectual prodigy. Only two characteristics came from Maria Eleonora: German as her mother tongue, and a love of music.

Six years before Christina’s birth, the art-enthusiast Maria Eleonora had brought German musicians to Sweden for her marriage to Gustavus Adolphus. Some remained in Stockholm after the festivities and formed the core of the royal chapel. At Christina’s birth, 23 Musicanter och Instrumentister [musicians and instrumentalists] were in royal service. One of the most talented was Andreas Düben: son of the Thomaskirche organist in Leipzig of the same name, he had studied under Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck in Amsterdam before establishing himself successfully at the Stockholm court. Düben became court organist, organist of the German Church (Tyska Kyrka) in 1625, Kapellmeister in 1640, and ten years later also organist of the great Storkyrkan Cathedral. Upon his death in 1662, his son Gustav succeeded him in all his posts and used these responsibilities to build a vast music collection. Today, the so-called Düben Collection, kept in Uppsala since 1732, provides invaluable insight into the musical repertoire of the seventeenth-century Swedish court.

Leonora Duarte, Antwerp’s Music Star from the 17th-Century

As impressive as Sweden’s outward might appeared, Stockholm seemed to Christina poor, outdated and provincial. The capital could not compare with the great cultural centres of Europe. Determined, the young queen set herself the goal of raising the Swedish court to become one of the continent’s most representative—an ambition that did not arouse universal admiration among her subjects. Thanks to the political alliance with France in 1635, French culture found its way northwards. Dance master Antoine de Beaulieu worked to introduce the Swedish nobility to the intricate codes of French court etiquette and the latest Parisian ballets. Christina also had a French ensemble engaged through her ambassador Magnus Gabriel De la Gardie. The fransöske Fiolister [French violinists], led by Pierre Verdier, arrived in Stockholm in the winter of 1646–1647. They formed a separate chapel dedicated to authentically performing the lavish French ballets. Christina herself, as the allegorical figure of Pallas, enjoyed dancing in them. These sumptuous performances cost a fortune to a state already in distress. In libellous pamphlets, the queen was accused of extravagance, alleged to squander even the kingdom’s small change whenever her dance master demanded payment. Christina did not let herself be discouraged. She ordered the execution of the instigators and continued to engage new artists.