Scandinavian and Finnish composers.

[Dundonnell]

Very interesting! For a nineteenth-century author to be still speaking so strongly to someone in the 21st century is quite exceptional. Only the really great writers can retain their appeal.

[Sorry to be slightly OT, Colin. But I HAD to ask...]

Please don't apologise! Yours is a far more elevated tangent than my mention of MISS Minogue

Can I mention another Norwegian composer- Knut Nystedt(born 1915 and still alive aged 92). Nystedt is an organist and has mainly produced a very great deal of sacred choral music, as I understand it. I first came across his music on an old LP of Norwegian music which included his "The Burnt Sacrifice" for narrator, chorus and orchestra. This short piece impressed me with its granitic splendour in rendering the Old Testament account. Since then I have acquired a couple of Simax discs of Nystedt's music-the first has the huge Symphony "Apocalypsis Joannis" for soprano, tenor, chorus and orchestra, while the second couples 'Kristnikvede'(Canticles of Praise) for chorus and orchestra(commemorating the 1000th anniversary of Norway's conversion to Christianity) with 'A Song as in the Night" for soprano, baritone, chorus and strings(a setting of Isaiah).
There are, however, also three symphonies and a horn concerto listed in the very detailed Wikipedia article(in Norwegian)-
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knut_Nystedt

Although the CD booklets refer to Nystedt's success outside Norway I suspect that is a comparative term. He may, however, be better known in choir circles and he must certainly now be the grand old man of Norwegian music. Like Englund in Finland, he studied with Aaron Copland in the USA but is said to have been influenced by Ligeti and Penderecki in the 60s before returning to a basically Romantic idiom in the 1970s.

So...another composer probably unfamiliar to most but one, I suspect, who would appeal to some here

erato...are you familiar with his music?

[Tapio Dimitriyevich Shostakovich]

With Atterberg, it is the 8th symphony which is my favourite, although I don't like the overblown last movement. I also like Nos 2,3 and7. No 9 was a disappointment.

Agree with #8. Everybody likes #3, and 5 has the incredibly sad Lento, which means a lot to me. I have the CPO recordings, I only wish to listen to another #5 recording one day. I'm not sure if it's the work or the recording, but #5/2 Lento has overstrong treble and no bass in the ppp climax in the end, very sharp and biting my ears.

I don't know the most composers mentioned in this thread. Only Sibelius, Petterson, Grieg, Atterberg, a bit Rautavaara and... I have a Sallinen CD here, but even forgot which one. I remember the music was too modern for me

[vandermolen]

Agree with #8. Everybody likes #3, and 5 has the incredibly sad Lento, which means a lot to me. I have the CPO recordings, I only wish to listen to another #5 recording one day. I'm not sure if it's the work or the recording, but #5/2 Lento has overstrong treble and no bass in the ppp climax in the end, very sharp and biting my ears.

I don't know the most composers mentioned in this thread. Only Sibelius, Petterson, Grieg, Atterberg, a bit Rautavaara and... I have a Sallinen CD here, but even forgot which one. I remember the music was too modern for me

Although we have veered away from our main topic of coversation; Kylie and different recordings of "I should be so lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky etc" I am prepared to get back to discussing Scandinavian composers. Thanks for the recommendation for Atterberg Symphony No 5. Somehow this has passed me by although I do have a recording of it. I shall listen to it over the weekend if I get the chance. Lundquist is another composer of interest whom I don't think we have discussed yet.

[Dundonnell]

What an attractive composer Atterberg was! An unabashed romantic with little time for 'advanced music'. I love the fact that the Swede carried on his day job(like Charles Ives) while composing. He did not actually retire from his senior post in the Swedish Registration and Patent Office until he was 80. I cannot quite forgive him for winning the 1928 Columbia prize with his 6th Symphony defeating Havergal Brian's Gothic! How HB could have used the $10,000(a fortune in 1928!). Still, the blame really lies with Glazunov forhis casting vote in favour of Atterberg.

I built up a collection of Atterberg symphonies before CPO embarked on its cycle so the only symphony I have on that label is the choral 9th("Sinfonia Visionaria")-which I admit didn't really live up to expectations.
For the others, I have Stig Westerberg for No.1(Sterling), No.2(Swedish Society) and No.5(Musica Sveciae), Sixten Ehrling for No.3(Caprice),Sten Frykberg for No.4(Sterling), Junichi Hirokami for No. 6(BIS) and Michail Jurowski for Nos. 7 and 8(Sterling). I suppose several of these are rather long in the tooth recordings but I like them all both as music and as performances. I think that I shall stick with them rather than invest/waste money by buying another set!

Oh..and yes, the finale of No.8 is bombastic but I can live with a good deal of bombast

Sadly, I found the concertos-piano, violin, cello- rather weak though9the Horn Concerto is better). Would like to hear more of Atterberg's Suites(only know No.3 for violin, viola and strings).

[DavidRoss]

Ah, yes, just seeing this thread title pop up oin the index reminds me that it's been too long since hearing Stenhammar's 2nd Symphony.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

I cannot quite forgive him for winning the 1928 Columbia prize with his 6th Symphony defeating Havergal Brian's Gothic! How HB could have used the $10,000(a fortune in 1928!).

Neither can I. On the other hand - the Sixth is now nicknamed 'the Dollar Symphony', which albatross I'd not have eternally round my neck as a composer...

[Dundonnell]

Neither can I. On the other hand - the Sixth is now nicknamed 'the Dollar Symphony', which albatross I'd not have eternally round my neck as a composer...

True...and it is not even one of Atterberg's better symphonies, in my opinion.

However..I had better set the record straight after my reference to Havergal Brian's Gothic Symphony and Glazunov's casting vote-

Atterberg's 6th won lst place in the Nordic section of the 1928 International Columbia Gramophone Competition(Ludvig Ingens Jensen's Passacaglia came second). The judges for that section included Carl Nielsen and Ture Rangstrom. In the final in Vienna in June the judges were Glazunov(as chairman), Nielsen, Guido Adler, Franco Alfano, Alfred Bruneau, Walter Damrosch, Emil Mylnarski, Adolfo Salazar, Franz Schalk,Max von Schillings and Sir Donald Tovey.

Sir Donald Tovey certainly appears to have pressed the claims of the Gothic and it was probably considered by the jury in their final discussions but there does not appear to be any firm evidence that Glazunov's casting vote-which was used-prevented the Gothic from winning. The fact that there were honorable mentions for Franz Schmidt's 3rd Symphony and Czeslaw Marek's Sinfonia suggest that they were probably the runners-up.
In any case what the judges were actually assessing were the first three movements of the Gothic without the chorale finale. The Gothic had come third in the British section of the competition-behind Frank Merrick's completion of Schubert's Unfinished Symphony and John St. Anthony Johnson's 'Pax Vobiscum'.

The 6th may have made Atterberg a lot of money but the first prize brought down upon his head a cascade of international opprobrium with the press denouncing the symphony as a pastiche and outrageous plagiarism(which is grotesquely unfair!) and accusing him and the organizers/judges of financial corruption.

There is a fascinating article about all this-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1928_International_Columbia_Graphophone_Competition

[Dundonnell]

Haug's First Symphony, another Aurora CD that I happen to own, used to be, for a long time, the only contemporary Norwegian symphony that I knew of. I never heard the other two, and left it there. Now, your description makes me turn off Söderlind's Fourth and play Haug's First first again:

                                 

I think I remember I Robert Layton mentioned Haug's First as a promising recent composition in his chapter about `Holmboe and the Scandinavians' in Robert Simson's (ed.) book The Symphony which used to be my guide into the modern symphony in the early 1980s. (This book, btw, being a major incentive for me to find out more about this Vagn Holmboe, a name I wouldn't have know without this vivid description of his symphonies.)

Anyhow, in Robert Layton's own (ed.) Guide to the Symphony, I read in his own chapter on the Scandinavian symphony after Nielsen and Sibelius, these words on Haug's First you are referring at. Great to hear this impressive music afresh, after more than a decade! And time to play the Sinfonietta too. Lots of work to do. now: first Haug, than Söderlind again, Egge, Saeverud again, then explore the complete Aho cycle ... 

I managed to find a copy of Haug's 1st Symphony through an Amazon marketplace dealer-an ex-library copy for $34. Not cheap with postage from the USA added on but it arrived in 7 days across the Atlantic and is in perfect playing condition. Considering that other used copies were going for from $50-75
I think that I did reasonably well. AND it is indeed a superb work-as Chisto, Robert simpson and Robert Layton all agreed

[vandermolen]

Have just been listening to Bo Linde's Violin concerto (Naxos); a very attractive work. Sadly he died very young (37).

Review:

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classRev/2006/Feb06/Linde_8557855.htm

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Listened this morning to two performances of the same work - Louis Glass, Symphony No. 5 Sinfonia Svastica. One is historic (Grondahl), the other recent:

           

A sometimes fiery, sometimes deliciously Delian work. A real treat. (Btw - 'svastica' is used in its original sense of 'renewal'. So this is no symphony celebrating AH... It dates from 1919-1920.)

Edit: let's add a review, too:

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2001/dec01/Louis_Glass.htm

[Henk]

Great thread, inspired me to increase my wish list with some recordings of Langgaard, Lindberg, Kokkonen, Englund, Atterberg, Stenhammer, Pettersson, Leifs.

Go checking out samples these days. If this is all as good as the Rautavaara I'm listening now...

[vandermolen]

Great thread, inspired me to increase my wish list with some recordings of Langgaard, Lindberg, Kokkonen, Englund, Atterberg, Stenhammer, Pettersson, Leifs.

Go checking out samples these days. If this is all as good as the Rautavaara I'm listening now...

Don't forget Hilding Rosenberg, especially his great 3rd Symphony 

Review with contribution from me (including getting Rubbra's first name wrong) 

http://www.musicweb.uk.net/classrev/2003/Jan03/Rosenberg3.htm

[Dundonnell]

Don't forget Hilding Rosenberg, especially his great 3rd Symphony 

Review with contribution from me (including getting Rubbra's first name wrong) 

http://www.musicweb.uk.net/classrev/2003/Jan03/Rosenberg3.htm

I was going to write something like-"Don't get me started on Hilding Rosenberg, Jeffrey.." before remembering that we had been there before-

http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,2523.0.html

Sadly, nothing has changed since that post last year and Robert von Bahr's response was pretty unequivocal-BIS has no plans to record Rosenberg. 'Tis odd-Rosenberg was the Grand Old Man of Swedish music but is now the neglected member of his generation. BIS recorded cycles of the symphonies of Wilhelm Stenhammer, Hugo Alfven, Gosta Nystroem, Lars-Erik Larsson and Karl-Birger Blomdahl. CPO did the same for Wilhelm Peterson-Berger, Ture Rangstrom, Kurt Atterberg, Dag Wiren and Allan Pettersson.

That's pretty well the complete sweep of the principal Swedish symphonists of the 20th Century but no Rosenberg cycle. We subsist on the (mostly) aged recorded performances mentioned in the Musicweb review of No.3.

I would remind those interested of the interesting Rosenberg website(details in the old thread linked above).

[Lilas Pastia]

Rosenberg's symphony no. 4 (St-John's Revelation) is impressive too. I love the one string quartet I own - an uncompleted work. He left it almost finished, only the coda of IV remaining to be composed. He found it in his drawers when he was clearing his house to move into a senior's home , but at over 90 he didn't feel he could finish it. He commissioned three younger swedish composers (including Sven-Erik Back and Ingvar Lidholm) to provide the last minute or so that was missing. That's how it's been recorded on a single (27 minutes) cd on Caprice, with each of the codas interlocking on the preceding one to make for an organically complete work.

His piano concertos are sensational and heartily recommended. The ballet Orpheus in Town is also great stuff, but it demands to be heard in its integral version, not the much abridged suite recorded by Andrew Davis. This excises all the wonderful recurrent quotations form Gluck's own Orfeo (the aria Che Faro senza Euridice). Given that that opera is at the center of the ballet plot, excluding the many musical references to this famous tune is a baffling decision. Was Rosenberg responsible for that butchery?

Johan, thanks for that Louis Glass post. I have the Marco Polo disc of 5 and 6. Am I missing something?

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Johan, thanks for that Louis Glass post. I have the Marco Polo disc of 5 and 6. Am I missing something?

The 5th is the only one I have listened to so far, André. Because Rob Barnett of Musicweb wrote about it in such glowing terms (as usual), I got infected (as usual) and simply had to hear it... From what I gather the Sinfonia Svastica is the best of the lot, though.

[vandermolen]

I'd forgotten about the old Rosenberg thread. I read my old posts there and have no memory of writing them! (either advanced age or the work of a doppelganger  )

The Rosenberg Finlandia CD with Andrew Davis and the Stockholm PO was clearly just a bonus and not the start of a Rosenberg revival. Naxos should record all the symphs. The end of no 2, all of No 3 and 6 and parts of No 4 are great music. I don't know the others but have an LP of No 8.

[Dundonnell]

I suppose part of the problem of committing to a Rosenberg cycle will be that both Nos. 4 and 5 are big choral works and CPO, for example, might want to record a Swedish radio performance rather than hiring an orchestra, choir and soloists. There may be no prospect of this for the company. Maybe someone should write to them?

I know the Louis Glass symphonies through the Danacord series with the Plovdiv orchestra. Regret to say that I found them rather pedestrian but perhaps I ought to give them another go? Dacapo may, of course, give us a set with a Danish orchestra. Having recorded Langgaard, Peder Gram, Hermann Koppel, Ludolf Neilsen and Leif Kayser they should be looking for something new

[Henk]

Don't forget Hilding Rosenberg, especially his great 3rd Symphony 

Review with contribution from me (including getting Rubbra's first name wrong) 

http://www.musicweb.uk.net/classrev/2003/Jan03/Rosenberg3.htm

Thanks for the recommendation. I will investigate.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Great thread, inspired me to increase my wish list with some recordings of Langgaard, Lindberg, Kokkonen, Englund, Atterberg, Stenhammer, Pettersson, Leifs.

Go checking out samples these days. If this is all as good as the Rautavaara I'm listening now...

Henk, be careful with Langgaard. I have noticed you like modern music best, so if you try Langgaard, begin with his most advanced piece - 'Music of the Spheres'. Most of the symphonies will be too romantic for you (or are you into late Romantic music?!)

[Lilas Pastia]

If one is to be clued by his avatar, I think Henk is a versatile listener  .