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Music Giants of the North, Part One
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17481 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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7 / 1990 |
1,959 Words |
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Robert R. Reilly
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The abundance of first-rate instrumental music composed by Scandinavians in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is, mysteriously, a secret to most music lovers. But a spate of recordings is now bringing the resplendence of these "Northern Lights" to an international audience.
Scandinavian music does not have a history much older than that of American music. The "father" of Swedish music is a figure of the Baroque era, Johan Helmich Roman (1694-1758), but the first Swedish or Scandinavian composer of really individual profile was Franz Berwald (1796-1868), a genius so neglected that many of his works were not heard until our own century. Surely there was music in Scandinavia, but there was no distinctly Scandinavian music until the latter half of the nineteenth century.
Just as in the United States, it took a century or so to break free of the hegemony of German music before music with a particular national character could be developed. The English composer Robert Simpson speculates that the late arrival of the Northern Lights was because "culture began in the sun" and that only nineteenth-century advances in technology brought the harsh life in Scandinavia to a level of cultural leisure wherein music could be pursued. Whatever the truth of this may be, Scandinavian music is drenched in an elemental feel for the forces of nature, in both their destructive and uplifting guises.
Three years before Berwald died in 1868, both Jean Sibelius and Carl Nielsen were born. These two giants swept aside the anonymity of Scandinavian music with such force that those who followed them in Finland and Denmark had to measure themselves in their shadow, much as any German symphonist has had to do with respect to Beethoven.
Curiously, it was only after Silbelius and Nielsen and Berwald's reputation began to rise, and it is worth taking a moment to focus upon him, and one other, before moving on to the two giants of whom he was a precursor.
Startling Freshness
Franz Liszt told the 61-year-old Berwald in 1857, "You have originality, but you will not be a success in our lifetime." The famous conductor Hans von Bulow was equally amazed when he encountered a performance of Berwald's tow Piano Quintets in 1858: "Yesterday we had a most agreeable evening…. Look over…. the two Quintets by this ancient musician-of-the-future, and you will marvel that Berwald was born in 1796: it is hard to believe!" The startling freshness that so pleased von Bulow can be heard on an Accord compact disc (149508) of the two Piano Quintets, played by the Swedish team of the Benthiem String Quartet and pianist Robert Tiefling. Though recorded monophonically in 1962, these invigorating performances have been remastered very well and sound remarkably good.
Ultimately, Berwald's stature rests upon his four extraordinary symphonies. The novelty of the thematic ideas, but most of all their quality, the rhythmic verve, and the vigorous development, make these four works, all written before 1850, one of the unknown orchestral treasure troves of the nineteenth century. Deutsche Grammophon (DGG) offers all four in a two-CD set (415502-2), performed by the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Neeme Jarvi. These recordings have been highly praised. Jarvi
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