All Hymns are based on old Swedish folk music hymns. The origins for these melodies are very old, going minimum 100 to 150 years back.
Hymn 250
Hymn 250 is the latest of the 4 hymns, and I wanted to do something different with the original theme. In all of the other hymns, the original theme is presented in full length at some point in the piece. In Hymn 250, you never hear a complete theme. But all the individual phrases are there, they are varied and harmonized in different ways, but there is no complete, harmonized hymn melody at any point. Another difference is the sicilienne rhythm, added in bar 9, which remains as an underlying structure during most of the piece.
The .mp3 recording in Hymn 250 is a live recording, from a rehearsal in Skovshoved Church, Denmark. The organ is played by Tove Lindgreen, and the composer plays the cello.