SPOHR, HUMMEL, BERWALD, KREUTZER, BEETHOVEN & SCHUBERT : Septets, Octets & Nonets (2006) 6CD | FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

In hard times, everyone is looking for the killer deal. In respect to wind chamber music of the early romantic period, one could hardly do better than with Brilliant Classics' Romantic Ensembles, a six-CD box set that contains much of the major wind literature from the first half of the nineteenth century. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, a fad in Europe for harmoniemusik -- groups of wind bands that usually played potpourris of operatic hits -- was current. Composers such as Hummel, Kreutzer, Spohr, Schubert, Berwald, and Beethoven here seized upon this format to express more complex and ambitious musical concepts. Beethoven's Septet in E flat, Op. 20, though not as highly regarded some of his symphonies in retrospect, played a major role in establishing Beethoven's reputation as a composer. The Schubert Octet in F, D. 803, and Berwald's Grand Septet in B flat were works that looked to Beethoven's as a kind of model; others represented here to some degree tap into the eighteenth century approach to harmoniemusik and forges something new and original out of it. The early nineteenth century was the most fruitful era of any concerning developments in the wind chamber format; as such groups merged into larger units and became more concerned with popular music, interest among composers in producing works like these began to flag in the latter half of the century.

One of the reasons this modest and innocuous-looking box is so desirable is the performances included. These are not just any groups performing these works, but top-flight ensembles -- The Berlin Philharmonic Octet, the Wiener Kammerensemble, and Britain's the Nash Ensemble. The reason that this can be marketed so cheaply is that all are older recordings, but most are at least digital and the performances are all first-rate. Brilliant Classics' Romantic Ensembles would make a lovely gift for a wind player, or someone specifically interested in wind ensemble music, and the modest asking price won't break the bank. by Uncle Dave Lewis  
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FRANZ BERWALD : Complete Duos (Bergstrom, Lundin, Ringborg, Rondin) (2000) FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

Franz Berwald (1796-1868)
Complete Duos

Almost everybody would agree that Franz Berwald was the musical world's leading light in nineteenth-century Sweden. Many regard him as Sweden's foremost composer ever. But during his lifetime few of his countrymen appreciated his art.

This was partly because symphonies, the genre at which he excelled, were little appreciated. Besides operas and Singspiele, more intimate forms of music practised in the home with friends were preferred, such as piano pieces, chamber music, works for male choir and solo songs. Most of what was written was unpretentious in the salon music vein.

Orchestral concerts were given sporadically by the Hovkopellet, the orchestra of the Royal Opera, but the few symphonies that were presented in these concerts were foreign and usually quite old. For decades in Sweden no new symphonies appeared; Adolf Lindblad's Symphony No. 1 being the only example. Its first performance in 1832 is significant from a musical historical point of view, but it hardly made an impact. Around ten years later the Leipzig Gewandhaus-orchester played it, but in Sweden Lindblad remained known exclusively for his songs and chamber music.

It is therefore easy to understand why Berwald the sophisticate found the antiquated Swedish music scene suffocating. In 1829, at the age of thirty-three, he left Sweden and moved to Berlin, where he remained for twelve years, working not as a musician but in one of the other professions he was obliged to practise during his lifetime in order to support himself. As a skilled orthopedic surgeon he managed to make a successful living, from 1835 running his own orthopedic institute. In his free time he wrote a not insubstantial amount of music, first and foremost operatic fragments, although nothing complete has emerged from this time. One can wonder why, when he had now found a more inspiring milieu.

In the spring of 1841 he closed the institute and moved to Vienna, it seems to continue his work in the orthopedic field. He discovered, however, that the Viennese showed an interest in his music, which seems to have cleared his writers' block. Although he only remained in Vienna for a year he managed to write several works, including two symphonies, four orchestral fantasies and the opera Estrella de Soria. Some of the works were played immediately, including most of the opera. He himself conducted three of the shorter pieces. The reception he received in this cosmopolitan city was more positive than any he had experienced before. One can understand why he might feel that the world was ready for his music, even Sweden. After thirteen years abroad he decided to return home. In April 1842 he arrived in Stockholm with his bags full of new music.

His hopes had been in vain however. The Swedish music scene had not changed noticeably at all. Stockholm, was, apart from the Opera, as provincial as it had always been, at least it seemed that way to Berwald who was now used to the rich concert life on the continent. The few compositions he did manage to have performed met with little success. Some works were deemed to be uninteresting, others the work of an eccentric outsider. Yet he did have some new ideas – from a Swedish perspective. Inspiration came from innovators such as Beethoven and Cherubini and, to a certain extent, Weber. When it came to inventiveness, sudden leaps and unexpected key changes he often went further than they did. The musical development of a piece by Berwald was far less predictable than most of the music that was known in Sweden at the time, and for us it is precisely the unexpected which makes it so exciting.

During his years abroad Berwald must have heard the music of Europe's true innovators; Berlioz, Liszt and Wagner, however their influence is noticeably absent from his music. He continued to draw inspiration from the classicists and early romantics, Gluck and Mozart being among those he admired. What was foreign to Swedish audiences of the day was his pronounced personal style, rather than anything truly revolutionary.

Of Berwald's four symphonies, only the Sinfonie sérieuse (Naxos 8.553051) was played during his lifetime; once, badly rehearsed and with a greatly reduced orchestra. The performance took place at the Royal Opera House in Stockholm in 1843 under the direction of a conductor who, it seems, showed no great interest in the work. This was Berwald's cousin Johan Fredrik Berwald, renowned as an imaginative director of music, but not on very good terms with cousin Franz, ten years his junior.

Whether through personal animosity, a lack of understanding of the music or quite simply insufficient rehearsal time, Swedish audiences' only opportunity to hear the symphonic genius of Berwald was thus lost. The work was not performed again until 1876, eight years after Berwald's death. Several of the other symphonies had to wait until the beginning of the twentieth century for first performances.

In 1846 Berwald departed once more for foreign shores, stopping in Paris, Vienna, Salzburg and southern Germany. In Vienna he was once again warmly received, on one occasion in a performance with Jenny Lind. In Salzburg he became one of the few Swedes to have the rare honour of being elected an honorary member of the Mozarteum. He was also accorded warm receptions elsewhere.

Economic difficulties forced Berwald to return to Sweden for good in 1849 and for seven years he managed a glassworks in Ångermanland in Northern Sweden. He was still able to spend his winters in Stockholm where, amongst other things, he was able to take part in performances of chamber music in the homes of various musically-minded families. His failure to gain an audience for his larger works caused him now to concentrate almost completely on chamber music. In the ten years after his return to Sweden he completed two piano quintets, two string quartets, three piano trios as well as duos for violin and piano and cello and piano. Six of these works he had published by the Hamburg publishing house Schuberth.

It is to this period that four of the works on the present recording belong. The remaining piece appears to have been written in 1816 or 1817 by a twenty-year old Berwald who had already been employed by the Hovkapellet for four years. His younger brother August was also employed there and from time to time the two violinists gave concerts in Stockholm and elsewhere. The Duo Concertant for two violins may have been composed for just such an occasion. That the piece survives at all today is pure chance; in 1931 a man by the name of Martin Andréason was walking past a demolition site when he noticed a few sheets of manuscript sticking out of an abandoned suitcase amongst the rubble. Fortunately the man was not just anyone, but one of the repetiteurs at the Royal Opera in Stockholm. When he opened the case he discovered a bundle of old manuscripts including the Duo Concertant. A further coincidence was that Andréason's wife was the violinist Lottie Andréason, who for many years had been a member of the Berwald Trio together with the composer's grand-daughter, the pianist Astrid Berwald. It was natural that Lottie therefore be entrusted with the manuscripts. It transpired that they had been given to Henrik Hästesko, a violin pupil of Berwald's cousin Johan Fredrik Berwald, and that they had remained in the Hästesko family until they were discovered in the abandoned suitcase.

The Duo for cello (or violin) and piano seems to have been written in the early autumn of 1857, when Berwald had just returned from a visit to Weimar, during which he received praise from Liszt for some of his works. Berwald dedicated the Duo to a cellist from Weimar, Bernhard Cossman, who gave the first performance of the work in January 1859.

In June of that year the work received a successful performance in Leipzig from Friedrich Grützmacher (best known today for his dubious edition of one of Boccherini's cello concertos) and the twenty-one-year old pianist Hilda Thegerström, a protogée of Berwald's whom he introduced to Liszt. Following an acclaimed début that year Thegerström soon came to be regarded as Sweden's finest pianist.

At some point between 1858 and 1860 Berwald wrote the Duo for violin and piano. No performances during Berwald's lifetime are documented, but it may well have received a private performance at the home of Berwald's friend Lars Fries, where many of Berwald's works had received their first airings. In any case the manuscript was in the possession of Fries at the time of the composer's death.

The violin part of the Concertino for violin and piano was written for a musician who was to become world-famous; the soprano Christina Nilsson (1843-1921), who, as a child was well-known enough in the dance halls of her home province of Småland to be given the nickname Stina from Snugge. In 1859 she began lessons with Berwald, who offered her lodgings in his home. At various song recitals in Stockholm the following year she delighted audiences with her violin playing as well as her singing, presumably including her teacher's Concertino. Only the first part survives today, and it is not known how much longer the piece originally was. In contrast to the brilliant piano parts of the completed duos the piano part here appears purely in a supporting role.

Apart from his Piano Concerto for Hilda Thegerström (Naxos 8.553052), Berwald did not attempt any larger scale works for the piano, although several smaller pieces of various types exist. The Fantasy on two Swedish folk-melodies has been preserved only in an anonymous manuscript in a hand other than Berwald's, and although it does not name him it has been attributed to Berwald. Probably written in the late 1850s it contains the Värmlandsvisan (‘Värmland Song’), well-known in Sweden to this day, and a melody that is believed to be derived from a polka by the Dalecarlian fiddler Pekkos Per. by Sven Kruckenberg (English version: Andrew Smith)

FRANZ BERWALD : Piano Trios in E flat major & D minor & Piano Quintet in C minor (1989) FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

FRANZ BERWALD : Piano Trios Nºs 1-3 (Kiss, Onczay, Prunyi) (1993) FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

Franz Berwald (1796-1868): Piano Trios Nos. 1-3

The Swedish composer Franz Berwald was the most distinguished of a musical dynasty of German origin. He was born in 1796 in, Stockholm, the son of Christian Friedrich Georg Berwald, a former pupil of Franz Benda in Berlin, who had first moved to Stockholm in 1772. Franz Berwald's younger brother Christian August served as a violinist in the Swedish court orchestra from 1815 and as its leader from 1834 to 1861. He himself had followed family tradition as a violinist, taught by his father, and was a member of the court orchestra from 1812 until 1828. He also appeared as a soloist and in 1819 toured Finland and Russia on a concert tour with his brother. Meanwhile he was winning something of a reputation as a composer, in particular with a symphony, now partly lost, and a violin concerto that followed earlier works for violin and orchestra.

In 1829 Berwald at last found the necessary patronage for study abroad and moved to Berlin, where he took lessons in counterpoint, but at the same time developed an interest in medicine. The early 1830s found him occupied abortively with operatic composition, but in 1835 he opened his own orthopedic institute, an enterprise that enjoyed some success over the next six years, until he decided in 1841 to sell the institute and move to Vienna. There he continued to pursue his medical interests, while turning his attention to a new opera, his tenth attempt at the form Estrella de Soria. In 1842 there was a successful concert of his music, after which he returned once more to Stockholm, where he hoped for similar success.

Now devoting his fuller attention to composition, Berwald completed his four surviving symphonies, but failed to achieve a favourable hearing either for the first of these or for two operettas that he had staged. In 1846 he returned to Vienna, where critics valued his gifts, as elsewhere in Austria and Germany and in 1847 he was elected a member of the Salzburg Mozarteum, a recognition of his distinction. Three years later financial pressure brought a return to provincial Stockholm once more, but his unsuccessful attempts to find musical employment either as a conductor of the court orchestra or at the University of Uppsala now led to a further change of direction and in 1850 he became manager of a glass factory at Sandö, in the north of the country, later extending his commercial interests to include a sawmill. Winter visits to Stockholm were still possible and he was able to continue his association with music in particular with the composition of chamber music. By 1859 he had settled again in Stockholm, returning to a musical career. In 1862 his opera Estrella de soria was staged with some success and two years later he completed his last opera, Drottningen av Golconda (‘The Queen of Golconda’). At last he had begun to earn a measure of public recognition, with membership of the Swedish Royal Academy and the eventual, if at first disputed, appointment to a professorship He died in Stockholm in 1868. by Keith Anderson

FRANZ BERWALD : Piano Trios Vol. 2 (Drafi, Kertesz, Modrian) (1993) FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

Franz Berwald (1796-1868)

Piano Trios Volume 2

The Swedish composer Franz Berwald was the most distinguished of a musical dynasty of German origin. He was born in 1796 in Stockholm, the son of Christian

Friedrich Georg Berwald, a former pupil of Franz Benda in Berlin, who had first moved to Stoekholm in 1772. Franz Berwald’s younger brother Christian August served as a violinist in the Swedish court orchestra from 1815 and as its leader from 1834 to 1861. He himself had followed family tradition as a violinist, taught by his father, and was a member of the court orchestra from 1812 until 1828. He also appeared as a soloist and in 1819 toured Finland and Russia on a concert tour with his brother. Meanwhile he was winning something of a reputation as a composer, in particular with a symphony, now partly lost, and a violin concerto that followed earlier works for violin and orchestra.

In 1829 Berwald at last found the necessary patronage for study abroad and moved to Berlin, where he took lessons in counterpoint, but at the same time developed an interest in medicine. The early 1830s found him occupied abortively with operatic composition, but in 1835 he opened his own orthopaedic institute, an enterprise that enjoyed some success over the next six years, until he decided in 1841 to sell the institute and move to Vienna. There he continued to pursue his medical interests, while turning his attention to a new opera, his tenth attempt at the form, Estrelle de Sorio. In 1842 there was a successful concert of his music, after which he returned once more to Stockholm, where he hoped for similar success.

Now devoting his fuller attention to composition, Berwald completed hisfour surviving symphonies, but failed to achieve a favourable hearing either for the first of these or for two operettas that he had staged. In 1846 he returned to Vienna, where critics valued his gifts, as elsewhere in Austria and Germany, and in 1847 he was elected a member of the Salzburg Mozarteum, a recognition of his distinction. Three years later financial pressure brought a return to provincial Stockholm once more, but his unsuccessful attempts to find musical employment either as a conductor of the court orchestra or at the University of Uppsala now led to a further change of direction and in 1850 he became manager of a glass factory at Sandö, in the north of the country, later extending his commercial interests to include a sawmill. Winter visits to Stockholm were still possible and he was able to continue his association with music in particular with the composition of chamber music. By 1859 he had settled again in Stockholm, returning to a musical career. In 1862 his opera Estrelle de Soria was staged with some success and two years later he completed his last opera, Drottningen av Golconda (‘The Queen of Golconda’). At last he had begun to earn a measure of public recognition, with membership of the Swedish Royal Academy and the eventual, if at first disputed, appointment to a professorship. He died in Stockholm in 1868.
More About this Recording

FRANZ BERWALD : Piano Quintets (Uppsala Chamber Soloists, Bengt-Åke Lundin) (2000) FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

 Franz Berwald (1796-1868)
Complete Works for Piano Quintet

Almost everybody would agree that Franz Berwald was the music world's leading light in nineteenth-century Sweden. Many regard him as Sweden's foremost composer, but during his lifetime few of his countrymen appreciated his art. This was partly because symphonies, the genre at which he excelled, were little appreciated. Besides operas and Singspiele, more intimate forms of music practised in the home with friends were preferred, such as piano pieces, chamber music, works for male choir and solo songs. Most of what was written was unpretentious in the salon music vein.

Orchestral concerts were given sporadically by the Hovkapellet, the orchestra of the Royal Opera, but the few symphonies that were presented in these concerts were foreign and usually quite old. For decades in Sweden no new symphonies appeared, Adolf Lindblad's Symphony No. 1 being the only example. Its first performance in 1832 is significant from a musical historical point of view, but it hardly made an impact. Around ten years later the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra played it, but in Sweden Lindblad remained known exclusively for his songs and chamber music.

It is therefore easy to understand why Berwald the sophisticate found the antiquated Swedish music scene suffocating. In 1829, at the age of thirty-three, he left Sweden and moved to Berlin, where he remained for twelve years, working not as a musician but in one of the other professions he was obliged to practise during his lifetime in order to support himself. As a skilled orthopaedic surgeon he managed to make a successful living, from 1835 running his own orthopaedic institute. In his free time he wrote a not insubstantial amount of music, first and foremost operatic fragments, although nothing complete has emerged from this time. One can wonder why, since he ad found a more inspiring milieu.

In the spring of 1841 he closed the institute and moved to Vienna, by all accounts to continue his work in the orthopaedic field. He discovered, however, that the Viennese showed an interest in his music, which seems to have cleared his writers' block. Although he only remained in Vienna for a year he managed to write several works, including two symphonies, four orchestral fantasies and the opera Estrella de Soria. Some of the works were played immediately, including most of the opera. He himself conducted three of the shorter pieces. The reception he was given in this cosmopolitan city was more positive than any he had experienced before. One can understand why he might have felt that the world was ready for his music, even Sweden. After thirteen years abroad he decided to return home. In April 1842 he arrived in Stockholm with his bags full of new music.
More About this Recording

FRANZ BERWALD : Symphonies and Overtures (Roy Goodman) 2CD (2004) FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

The Swedish composer Franz Berwald wrote music staggeringly ahead of his time; his symphonic works have rather more in common with Mendelssohn and Berlioz than strict chronological considerations would suggest. Robert Layton has written (in his Guide to the Symphony): 'It is the quality of Berwald's thematic invention, his transparent textures and expert orchestration, and the generosity of spirit that informs his musical personality that make his music engage both our sympathies and our affection'.

This set contains the four complete surviving symphonies, the fragmentary youthful A major Symphony (completed for this recording by Duncan Druce), and overtures to two of the composer's most successful operas.

There could be no orchestra more qualified to record the works of Berwald than that of the Swedish Broadcasting Corporation. Here they are conducted by Roy Goodman and recorded in the Berwald Hall in Stockholm. Hyperion

FRANZ BERWALD : Symphonies Nos. 1-4 (Thomas Dausgaard) 2CD (2004) FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

Half a decade after their first release on Chandos, Brilliant Classics has re-released Thomas Dausgaard and the Danish National Radio Symphony's recording Berwald's four symphonies. The only thing that has changed between the two releases is the price. The quality of the pieces, the performances, and the sound remain as they were before. The pieces, of course, are far and away the best symphonies written by a Swede in the Romantic period. Highly imaginative, brilliantly scored, robustly rhythmic, formally inventive, and thoroughly melodic, Berwald's symphonies rank right below Mendelssohn and Schumann's symphonies in the post-Beethoven/pre-Brahms repertoire. The performances, while very good, are not quite great. A skillful conductor, Dausgaard clearly understands the music and manifestly feels some affection for it, but his performances are just a tad too heavy and a shade too dark for the ebullient Berwald. Where the music should run, it jogs, and where it should soar, it plods. The Danish musicians do an adequate job of getting through the scores, but their playing lacks shine and sparkle. Chandos' sound was a bit distant, but clear and colorful, and Brilliant's sound is exactly identical. Of the digital recordings, Okko Kamu's, Roy Goodman's, Sixten Ehrling's, and Herbert Blomstedt's are better choices. by James Leonard

FRANZ BERWALD : 4 Symphonies (Gothenburg SO, Neeme Jarvi) 2CD / APE (image+.cue), lossless

KUHLAU, BERWALD : Piano Concertos (Paciariello, Tigani) (2002) APE (image+.cue), lossless

BERWALD • STENHAMMAR • AULIN : Swedish Romantic Violin Concertos (Willén, Swedish Chamber Orchestra, Ringborg) (1999) FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

Berwald; Stenhammar; Aulin
Violin Concertos

Franz Berwald is regarded as the most gifted musician of the nineteenth century in Sweden and yet his work was little understood by his contemporaries. This was partly because symphonies, the genre in which he excelled, were little appreciated. Of the four he wrote in the 1840s, the Symphonie sérieuse was the only one to be performed – once, badly rehearsed and with a reduced orchestra. Thus the only opportunity for audiences to hear his mastery was lost.

As early as 1829 Berwald had left the country and worked for twelve years in Berlin, not with music, but in one of several other professions he had to follow to support himself. This was physiotherapy, which he practised with significant success. He moved to Vienna in 1841, where an interest was taken in his music again. He began to compose once more, producing two symphonies, four orchestral fantasies and the opera Estrella de Soria. Some of the works were performed immediately. The reception in this cosmopolitan city was more positive than anything he had experienced before.

A year later Berwald returned to Sweden, perhaps in the hope that the musical climate had changed during his thirteen-year absence. It transpired that this was not the case, and Sweden seemed provincial and old-­fashioned to him. The few compositions he did manage to have performed met with little success. Some works were deemed to be uninteresting, others the works of an eccentric outsider.

Another period abroad, begun in 1846, brought results in France, Germany and Austria. Berwald was warmly received in Vienna and appeared together with Jenny Lind. In Salzburg he was made an honorary member of the Mozarteum, a rare honour for a Swede.

Economic difficulties forced Berwald to return to Sweden for good in 1849. For seven years he managed a glassworks in Angermanland in Northern Sweden. His failure to gain an audience for his larger works caused him to concentrate almost completely on chamber music. The only exception to this was the opera Drottningen av Golconda (‘The Queen of Golconda’), which had to wait 100 years for its first staged performance.

The Violin Concerto is one of Berwald's youthful works, written when he was 24 He had been playing the instrument since childhood, taught by his father who played in the Royal Opera Orchestra in Stockhohn Something of a child prodigy, he was perfon11ing from the age of nine. He continued his studies with Edouard Dupuy, who had moved to Sweden from France, and whose Violin Concerto Berwald performed at the age of foutteen Dupuy employed him two years later in the opera orchestra, where he remained, on and off, until 1828.

It was in his twenties that Berwald began to compose in earnest. He appears not to have had any formal training, but learnt his craft by studying scores by Gluck, Mozart, Cherubini, Beethoven and others. His work at the opera and contact with accomplished colleagues served to make him familiar with all instruments and with an orchestra's way of working. In 1817 he wrote a double concerto for himself and his brother August, two years his junior. A string quartet followed soon after, as well as a Quartet for piano and winds and the Violin Concerto.

The Violin Concerto is exceptional in several ways. Its key of C minor is unusual and not especially practical for the soloist and several technical difficulties are uncharacteristic of Swedish music of the time. These were allegedly written by Berwald for his boastful cousin Johan Fredrik, who claimed that he could master anything. However it was Berwald's brother August who gave the work its first performance in 1821. On the same occasion a symphony was performed, of which a large part of the first movement is all that survives.

The press were not enthusiastic. The Concerto was deemed to be too unwieldy and the soloist to lack any feeling for melody – except in the central movement, in which the accompaniment was so ridiculous that some members of the audience burst out laughing. The music was soon forgotten and the Concerto remained unplayed for almost ninety years (the symphonic fragment for twice as long). It was not until 1909 that it was played again by the French-German violinist Henri Marteau, who then toured with it throughout Europe. In Sweden he actively contributed to the Berwald revival that had been started by Tor Aulin and Wilhelm Stenhamrnar.

Stenhammar too ranks as one of the leading figures in Swedish music, with a small but particularly fine body of work. His mature works can be characterized as aristocratically measured, sometimes wilful, rich in feeling but without unbridled sentimentality or play for effect. Among his sources of inspiration were Bruckner and even Sibelius.

Few genres were unfamiliar to Stenhamrnar. His œuvre encompasses two symphonies, a large-scale orchestral serenade, two piano concertos, operas, music for the theatre, cantatas, songs, chamber music and works for piano. In his six string quartets a development can be traced from reminiscences of Beethoven to an austere polyphony which looks forward to the newer currents from between the wars.

Stenhammar's small creative output can be partly explained by his extensive activities as a practising musician. Ten years as a conductor in Stockholm were followed by fifteen years as Principal Conductor of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra. Today internationally renowned, the orchestra enjoyed its first golden age under Stenhammar. In addition Stenhammar was one of the leading pianists in Scandinavia.

The violin romance as a genre has a long history. Two of the earliest are by Beethoven from 1802-3, but there were even earlier examples. The original model can be traced back to the central movements of French concertos just after 1750. When the title was used towards the end of the nineteenth century, people rather had in mind the central section of Bruch's First Violin Concerto (1868). Its broad singing cantilena and use of the instrument's lower register inspired many. Some of the first ones were by Dvořák and Svendsen from 1873 and 1881 respectively. Less well known but of high quality are two romances by Max Reger (1900). In Scandinavia one by Christian Sinding and one by Wilhelm Peterson-Berger enjoyed a certain popularity, but after the first world war interest in this genre waned.

Stenhammar's contribution to the genre dates from 1910. Although he was only able to devote himself to his own music during the summer, this was a highly creative period. His Quartet No. 4 was completed in 1909, with No. 5 a year later. The following year he began work on his Second Symphony and the Serenade, all of which are regarded as his masterpieces.

The Romances were first performed in 1911 by Tor Aulin and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, with the composer conducting. Marked sentimental, this has nothing to do with the current meaning of the word, being used in those days to mean simply "with feeling".

Tor Aulin was another who played a leading part in Swedish music life at the turn of the century. He led the Royal Opera Orchestra in Stockholm and was also first violinist in the string quartet he founded in 1887 and led for over 25 years. It was the first established ensemble of its kind in Sweden, and it played an important role in exposing many to performances of a very high standard. Through the many long tours, often with Stenhammar at the piano, the ensemble became known throughout the country. When he was younger Aulin appeared from time to time as a soloist, but he later concentrated on conducting. Together with Stenhammar he was a driving force behind the founding of the orchestra which is now known as the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic. He was director of Music at the newly opened Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm and from 1909 appeared regularly in Gothenburg alongside Stenhamrnar.

This workload prevented Aulin from concentrating on composing in any more than a sporadic way. His chamber music consists of one violin sonata and several small pieces, mostly of a salon music character. The most frequently played is the Four Aquarelles for violin and piano.

Aulin wrote three violin concertos, of which the last has come to be regarded as one of Sweden's finest. It was first performed in 1896 and dedicated to the aforementioned Henri Marteau. Stylistically it is European in character, rather than specifically Scandinavian. Influences of Schumann, Brahms and even Bruch can be heard, and Brahms's famous Piano Concerto No. 1 seems to have been the model for the introductory dialogue between soloist and orchestra, as well as later passages.
Sven Kruckenberg
Translation: Andrew Smith

BERWALD • DU PUY : A Bassoon in Stockholm (Donna Agrell) (2015) SACD / FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

FRANZ BERWALD : The Complete String Quartets (1996) Mp3