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HUGO ALFVÉN
Symphony No. 4
The Swedish composer Hugo
Alfvén, born 2 years before Schönberg,
survived his younger colleague
by 9 years - yet his music remained
entirely in the spirit of late
Romanticism.
Alongside music, literature and
painting were also means which
Alfvén found suitable for the expression
of his thoughts and feelings.
His most important source of
inspiration was nature, particularly
water. He spent much time boating
in the archipelago near Stockholm,
and the strong impressions gained
on these outings flowed into his
Symphony No. 4 (1918/19) for soprano,
tenor and large orchestra.
My symphony tells a fairy tale of
the love between two human
beings, Alfvén once said.
The beauty of this 47 minute symphony,
which is little known outside
Sweden, moved Peter Kuhn to
perform it with his orchestra in Bielefeld
on 10 December.
KURT ATTERBERG
The curse
of beauty
When the 41 year old Swedish composer
Kurt Atterberg won the coveted
Columbia Schubert Composition
Award in New York in 1928, his
life changed in a major way. His
Symphony N0. 6 became popular
overnight and graced concert halls
around the world. Atterberg received
a sizeable sum of money
(hence Dollar Symphony), leaving
him free of immediate financial
worry.
Critics and the merely jealous, who
viewed his work's beauty as the result
of cold calculation, were quick
to arrive on the scene. Money
aside, Atterberg's style - particularly
his symphony's romantic Adagio -
was a thorn in the sides of his most
modern contemporaries, even
though this movement was born
out of a deep love for Swedish folk
music. The piece will be performed
on 27 February 2005 in Heilbronn,
by the Heilbronner Sinfonie Orchester
under Peter Braschkat.
rediscoveries
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