Hjalmar Borgström

mal structures. Borgstrøm’s style seems conservative and controlled, even though powerful
emotion apparently smoulders below the surface.
This, however, we know a lot less about. Borgstrøm was apparently a lonely and introvert
man. The primary source of this information is contemporaneous newspaper articles,
and in particular special editions of the periodical Musik published on his sixtieth birthday
in March 1924 and after his death in July the following year. Acquaintances and colleagues
give a fairly intimate account of his nature – up to a certain point. “An intense fire
burned behind the impassive appearance of that silent and lonely man,” wrote Jens Arbo
in 1925. One is left with the impression of a certain mystification, both on the part of the
writers and on the part of the composer himself, whose lips so often remained sealed.
In interviews Borgstrøm could come across as dismissive and almost hostile. The newspaper
Aftenposten asked him in 1922 whether his new piano quintet, an instrumental work,
was programmatic. “Of course it is, what else could it be?” was his entire reply. The reasons
for his irritation – if it has been correctly recorded – might have had several causes.
One historically relevant aspect is that Borgstrøm was probably tired of all the criticism
he had received in Norway for his musical style. Another reason, interesting from an aesthetic
point of view, is that he was probably highly justified. The difference between ‘programme
music’ and ‘absolute music’ had been exaggerated beyond reason in the course
of seventy years of German polemics.
In fact both these forms of music can be dramatic and narrative. Symphonies, sonatas,
concertos, overtures, opera and tone poems make use of musical figures which form part
of a narrative musical discourse. Both Borgstrøm and his more prominent contemporaries
– Mahler, Strauss, Sibelius – created meaningful, narrative works, judged by either
inner-musical or extra-musical standards. This is the case whether the music is referred
to as programmatic or absolute.
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