Search - Nystrom, Soderstrom, Westerberg :: Sinfonia Del Mare

Symphonic Seascapes from Sweden

Thomas F. Bertonneau | Oswego, NY United States | 03/11/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"A handful of modern Swedish composers have gained an audience among collectors outside their native land: Allan Pettersson enjoyed a momentary vogue in the early 1970s, when Antal Dorati took up his cause for Decca, and music by Lars-Erik Larsson and Hilding Rosenberg circulated on LPs issued in North America in the 1960s by Vox. Generally, however, the rich musical activity of twentieth century Sweden has remained terra incognita. This is a pity, since the best of Sweden's composers have been as good as the best anywhere in the world. The symphonies of Karl-Birger Blomdahl, of Maurice Karkoff, and of Dag Wirén (a few of which are available on BIS, Caprice, and Phono Suecia) manage to combine a steely modernism reminiscent of Hindemith with elements of an older romantic orientation that reflects the influence of Richard Strauss on the fin-de-siècle generation in Stockholm. Gösta Nystroem (1890-1966) is one of the injustly unknown practioners of the symphonic art from the "Land of the Midnight Sun." A contemporary of Rosenberg, he studied in Paris in the 1920s before returning to Sweden later in life. Formidably talented, he also achieved success as a painter and a poet, while making it clear that composition was his strength. While not exactly prolific, Nystroem worked steadily and built up an impressive catalogue of works in all genres. His fame rests on his sequence of symphonies, the two best known and most widely circulated being his Sinfonia Concertante (1944) for Cello and Orchestra and his magnum opus the Sinfonia del Mare (1947), for Orchestra with Soprano Solo. Even though the Swedish Society CD that couples these two works must be special-ordered from Amazon.com, it is worth going to the trouble to do so. The Sinfonia Concertante is comparable with and bears many a resemblance to Prokofiev's work of the same name, also for cello and orchestra. A substantial First Movement (Grave) is followed by an expansive Scherzo (Allegro Bucolico) which in turn is followed by an extended Finale (Lento). The melodic outlines are typically Swedish, with an emphasis on the minor. Nostalgia marks the two outer movements while the inner movement, the Scherzo, sings very sweetly and dances to hints of the old Swedish forms. Nystroem loved the sea, and a sense of seascape is sometimes sensible in the Sinfonia Concertante. In the Sinfonia del Mare, as the title communicates, the sea is everywhere. A succession of moods, including a fugal "storm at sea," culminates in the soprano's song about "den Förälskade," "the Beloved," whom the poet-and-composer once knew in a seaside setting, but who is long since vanished into the lost youth of his life. An alternate performance of the Sinfonia del Mare under Gennady Rozhdestvensky has just appeared on Phono Suecia but is not yet listed by Amazon.com. The other performance of the Sinfonia Concertante was (and perhaps still is) on BIS. In whatever incarnation, these are big, emotional pieces, and can stand on their own admist more familiar competition. Like Arnold Bax in Great Britain, Nystroem described himself as "an incurable romantic." He speaks to the same "incurable romantic" in all of us."