Music: Scandinavian Summer

Relax. Premised on pleasure, summer is not the time to delve into the complete works of Arnold Schoenberg or bring Alban Berg’s Wozzeck to the beach. It is a fun period to explore more accessible music and to pretend that you have the leisure to do so.

Happily buried under a flood of superb new releases that meet that description, I wondered how to give coherence to a group of them. The answer soon came: Scandinavia. As the major music labels plod along their treadworn ways, rerecording the major repertory, the smaller and more adventurous companies, like Naxos/ Marco Polo, CPO, Koch Schwann, and Sterling, are unearthing a wealth of overlooked musical treasures from northern climes.

Until the early 20th century, Scandinavia was a musical backwater. Then Euterpe suddenly awoke and has been making up for lost time by inspiring an amazing number of gifted composers. Before then, however, there were flickers of light. For example, Friedrich L.A. Kunzen (1761-1817), court composer to the Danish king, produced an extraordinary oratorio in 1797, The Hallelujah of Creation. Several years ago, Marco Polo created a splash with its Dacapo release of Kunzen’s opera, Holger Danske (unheard by this reviewer), which was favorably compared with the best of Mozart. It is Mozart who immediately springs to mind in hearing this work, which like Mozart’s religious works, has a strong operatic character. One contemporary critic complained: “Kunzen’s music can with full justification be compared to the best compositions in this genre—even though one finds in it more elegance and artistic exuberance than many a connoisseur might wish.” I take this as a recommendation. The connoisseur might also note how close Kunzen comes to lifting some of his themes out of the last part of Mozart’s Don Giovanni.

Kunzen’s oratorio was premiered before Haydn had written The Creation, which became the point of comparison for it. The Hallelujah of Creation may not reach Haydn’s exalted level, but this is a major work that no Mozart lover would want to miss. It is accompanied by two more very Mozartian works, a substantial Symphony in G minor and an Overture on a Theme by Mozart (from The Magic Flute). All is delectably performed by various soloists, the Danish National Radio Choir, and the Danish Radio Sinfonietta, under Peter Marschik.

In the 19th century, the frame of reference switched from Mozart to Beethoven. And Beethoven’s influence is what one hears in the two wonderfully invigorating symphonies of Adolf Fredrik Lindblad (1801-1878). Lindblad is known as the “father of Swedish song” because it is to song that he turned his energies after the 1832 premier of his First Symphony met with indifference in Stockholm. After this disappointment, Lindblad did not undertake the symphonic form again until 1855.

Meanwhile, he had studied in Berlin with Mendelssohn’s famous teacher, Zelter, and had begun a life-long friendship with Mendelssohn, who admired Lindblad’s work. The Symphony No. 2 adds Mendelssohn’s influence to that of Beethoven and, curiously enough, the scherzo contains premonitions of Franz Berwald (1796-1868), the greatest Swedish symphonist of the 19th century. The influence could hardly have been direct, because only one of Berwald’s symphonies was played during his and Lindblad’s lifetime. As another indication of the provinciality of Swedish musical life, no one was sufficiently interested in Lindblad’s Second Symphony to publish it. The Uppsala Chamber Orchestra, under conductor Gerard Korsten, plays these two attractive works with the verve they deserve.

August Söderman (1832-1876) is a Swedish composer completely new to me. The Sterling label has released a CD containing his Catholic Mass and a choral ballad based on a text by Heinrich Heine, Die Wallfahrt nach Kevlaar (The Pilgrimage to Kevlaar). The Mass is a wonderfully extroverted, highly rhetorical work of sweeping Romantic melodies and stirring brass fanfares. Though the liner notes call it “confessional,” presumably meaning that Söderman was a believing Catholic in Lutheran Sweden, the Mass is far from intimate. Rather, it seems a very public utterance with an almost operatic exuberance. If anything, Söderman strikes me as a Swedish Gounod. The Heine ballad, on the other hand, is quite intimate in feeling and exquisite in execution. It is a lovely, touching piece. The soloists, Chamber Choir, and Symphony Orchestra of the State Academy of Music in Stockholm give very convincing performances, under conductor Per Bonin.

Wilhelm Peterson-Berger (1867-1942) is another Swedish composer, renown principally for his songs, who valiantly but with mixed critical success wrote a number of symphonies as well. The CPO label has released what are probably his two best symphonies, No. 2 (Journey on Southerly Winds) and No. 3 (Lapland), each generously accompanied by other orchestral works, performed by the Norrkoping Symphony Orchestra, under Michail Jurowski. I fell in love with the Second Symphony (1910) years ago and remember playing an imported EMI recording of it for the wife of a Viennese composer, who remarked afterward, “It is like a string of musical pearls.” One gorgeous melody flows into another in this beguiling dream-fantasy. The Third Symphony (1915) is equally enchanting and made Peterson-Berger’s reputation as a symphonist.

Peterson-Berger was a Romantic nationalist and a great admirer of Wagner. He was his own man, however, and his symphonies are spared the kind of Germanic heaviness that dragged down so many overwrought works of this period. Although Stig Westerberg and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra gave a tauter performance of Symphony No. 2 on my EMI record from the 1970s, I am overjoyed at having these two CDs and recommend them to those who can sit back and allow themselves to be over-taken by rampant beauty.

The CPO label has also released a budget box of three CDs containing the four symphonies and other orchestral works of another Swedish composer, Ture Rangstrom (1884-1947), again with the Norrkoping Symphony Orchestra, under Michail Jurowski. As a youth, Rangstrom fell under the spell of Peterson-Berger’s works and became an ardent advocate of Romantic national music. His version of this stylistic vein, however, developed differently. If you are in the mood for musical melodrama, summer storms, or emotional tumult, this composer pulls out all the stops. His contemporaries’ deliciously wicked pun on his name, Sturm-und-Drangstrom, pretty much tells the story. At times, his works sound like a wild amalgam of John Williams’s Star Wars and Dracula sound tracks and film music from movies in which Gene Tierney plays a bad girl. It is great, wild fun and some-times more than that. It may be over-the-top, but the music contains stretches of mesmerizing beauty. I particularly recommend the Third and Fourth symphonies. The performances are exemplary.

Only three years Rangstrom’s junior, Kurt Atterberg (1887-1974) lived long into the 20th century and never abandoned his conservative idiom. Defiantly, he wrote a Romantic Symphony (No. 7) as late as 1942. This work and his Symphony No. 8 have been released on Sterling, with performances by the Malmo Symphony Orchestra, conducted by the very busy Michail Jurowski. Unfortunately, these two mildly ingratiating works show what seems to be a diminution in Atterberg’s inspiration. They have a dated charm but fail to vindicate the aesthetic stance Atterberg was trying to perpetuate.

Another Sterling release, containing the much earlier Piano Concerto, Op. 37, and Violin Concerto, Op. 7, proves perhaps that Atterberg’s inspiration was uneven throughout. A die-hard lover of Romanticism might luxuriate in these works, but they do not really achieve distinction. Much better is Atterberg’s Cello Concerto, Op. 21, newly available from Koch Schwann, with cellist Werner Thomas-Mifune and the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, under Karl Anton Rickenbacher. This is a substantial work of haunting beauty that shows what Atterberg was really capable of. It is coupled by the fine Cello Sonata, Op. 27.

A new CPO issue, offering Sym-phonies Nos. 1 and 4, gives a far better measure of Atterberg’s symphonic prowess. Symphony No. 1 may be a conservative Romantic work, but it has thematic allure and a vivid liveliness and is leavened by enharmonic modulations occasionally reminiscent of Franz Schmidt’s works. The Fourth is a more classical work, beautifully transparent in its orchestration, with gorgeous melodies. Both are given excellent performances by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Ari Rasilainen.

Carl Nielsen (1865-1931) was a composer of such dominating genius that few Danish composers emerged from his shadows. (Vagn Holmboe was one.) Poul Schierbeck (1888-1949) never made it. He was a Nielsen student who produced a symphony in 1921 so in his master’s style that I was in shock when I first heard it because his assimilation of Nielsen’s language was complete. But there was also an element of genius in his highly imitative work. Several further releases of Schierbeck’s music prove that he was a composer of extraordinary refinement and considerable gifts, even if he never completely shook Nielsen’s influence.

Marco Polo has issued two CDs in its Dacapo series, one featuring Schierbeck’s songs, and the other, three of his vocal and choral works with orchestra. The latter has The Chinese Flute, Queen Dagmar, a cantata, and The Tinder-Box, based on a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen. The first of these is a gem that is simply not to be missed. The Chinese Flute contains some of the most beautifully refined song settings I have heard. Queen Dagmar is far more dramatic but is equally refined and very moving. The Tinder-Box is a musical illustration of the spoken text of the Andersen fairy tale and an imaginative example of its genre.

Schierbeck also wrote an opera, Fete galante. If its quality approaches what is heard here, I beg Marco Polo to record it. The performances by the solists and the Odense Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Giordano Bellincampi, are revelatory. This is something special.

Having mentioned Vagn Holmboe, I should point out the latest and last release in the Marco Polo Dacapo series of his complete Chamber Concertos. Volume Four contains Nos. 10-13, performed by the Danish Radio Sinfonietta, conducted by Hannu Koivula. For the newcomer to Holmboe’s music, the chamber concertos make a good introduction. All of his stylistic traits are present, but these works are less intimidating than the magnificent, highly charged symphonies, of which there are also 13. In any case, these beautiful works are indispensable for gaining a more complete picture of the greatest Danish composer since Nielsen.

While still in Denmark, I must reveal that the tango, I mean the tango one always hears when one thinks of the tango, comes not from Argentina but from Danish composer Jacob Gade (1879-1963). He wrote Jalousie, Tango Tsigane in 1925. Ever after, this sultry work has been heard in films, on dance floors, and as background music. You will recognize it instantly. It is included in a collection of Gade’s light music on a Marco Polo CD, which includes a waltz, another tango, and other fun things, ably delivered by the Odense Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Matthias Aeschbacher.

Dag Wirén (1905-1986) has a reputation as a “one-work composer” because he is only known by his immensely popular Serenade for Strings. The CPO label teaches us otherwise in a CD release of his Second and Third Symphonies, along with two Concert Overtures, played by the Norrkoping Symphony Orchestra, under Thomas Dausgaard.

Wirén declared, “I believe in Bach, Mozart, Nielsen and absolute music.” Nielsen is a palpable influence in these works, but Wirén forgot to mention Sibelius, whose presence is even stronger, particularly in the way When builds the first movements of both sym-phonies. One does not have to pretend that Wirén was as profound or weighty a composer as either Nielsen or Sibelius to appreciate the enormous charm and vitality of these pieces. Critics carped at the premier of the Second Symphony that the piece was more a serenade than a symphony and were dismayed at the wild enthusiasm of the audience. I am on the audience’s side and have been repeatedly listening to these works when in the mood for pure enjoyment. I can’t wait to hear Wirén’s Fourth and Fifth Symphonies, available on another CPO release.

If you do not have Wirén’s Serenade, try Naxos’s budget release of it with other Scandinavian String Music (8.553106). Then get the new Swedish Orchestral Favorites, Vol. 2 (Naxos 8.553715), which features works by Atterberg and Rangstrom, along with Larsson, Frumerie, and Blomdahl, beautifully done by the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Petter Sundkvist.

Lastly, the Ondine label has issued two more CDs of the music of Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara (b. 1928). The first is an exquisite collection of Sacred Works for Mixed Chorus, seraphically sung by the Finnish Radio Chamber Choir, under conductor Timo Nuoranne. At the opposite end from Rautavaara’s signature big-boned, neo-Romantic orchestral works, these choral gems, which include Credo, Canticum Mariae Virginis, Ave Maria, and Magnificat, are small-scale treasures of a quiet interior life. Ondine offers the other Rautavaara in its most recent release, featuring the Piano Concerto No. 3, Gift of Dreams, and the orchestral tone poem Autumn Gardens, played by the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy, who is also the soloist in the Piano Concerto.

Both works are typical of Rautavaara’s expansive and sometimes dreamy soundscapes. Could he be the most unabashedly Romantic composer writing today?

Happy summer listening.

Author

  • Robert R. Reilly

    Robert R. Reilly is the author of America on Trial: A Defense of the Founding, forthcoming from Ignatius Press.

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