John Dalmas [[log in to unmask]] wrote:

>Did anyone mention composer Eduard Tubin? Eleven symphonies!  I assume he
>was Swedish.  Not?

Nope.  Estonian of birth.  Settled as a refugee in Sweden in 1944.  Which
composer do the gentlemen on the list consider his ten(!) symphonies most
alike? Mahler? Skriabin? Bartok? Would be interested to hear....

>How about singers Nicolai Gedda, Astrid Varnay, Elisabeth Soederstroem?

Well, How about BIRGIT NILSSON???

Peter Wisse [[log in to unmask]] wrote:

>Swedish musicians: Oivin Fjeldstad (conductor), Kirsten Flagstadt
>(beautiful in Sibelius songs)

Danish.

>Was Einar Englund Swedish?

No. Finnish.

>Gunnar Toenrvall (1895-1953)?

Don't know of him, but the name is Swedish. Toernvall.

>Adolf Wiklund (composer of two wonderful pianoconcertos)?

That is however a swede.

>And also Ruben Liljefors.

That too.

Erik Schissel wrote:

>If Segerstam would record more Pettersson...  but according to Cauthen's
>page, that seems beyond unlikely.  What he does with the 3rd & 15th makes
>Francis and Ruzicka's efforts in them sound underpowered.  A broadcast of
>his conducting the 4th symphony - likewise.  (Unless BIS gets permission
>to release that, Francis on cpo will, I guess, have to do, but it really
>doesn't.) &c.

I also hope Leif Segerstam will record more Pettersson!!  The coupling
with 3 & 15 as you mention is just splendid, and the 7th is equal to
Doratis 1968 recording, and that is not a bad mark - however it differs;
Doratis recording is GRIM; when the descending glissandos in the trombones
set in, it is like heavan is going to fall down on dooms day.  Segerstam
has a completely different wiew of Pettersson.  It is smooth, soft and
gentle, still not at all powerless.  I think thats a good wiew; when I
listen to Petterssons 2nd Violinconcerto; when the dissonats in the end
after 55 minutes dissolves and the sun shines on the meadow, to paraphrase
the Good Friday Spell in Parsifal ("da duenkt mich doch die Aue heut; so
schoen"), that is more Petterssons philosophy.  He doesn't comfort but he
is optimistic.  In that way I think - whatever breakthrough Doratis
recording was (and it is damned good) - that Segerstams Pettersson is
more Pettersson than Doratis is.  The 7th is my favourite of Segerstams
Pettersson recordings.  I have never heard else that woolly sound from
the Norrkoeping Symphony Orchestra in this repertoire....beautifully
transparent.

Segerstam is by the way also a composer, of 17 or so symphonies.  He
conducts some of them on BIS with the Danish National Orchestra.  Worth
trying IMHO.  Also very fine are the BIS recordings of Reger.

Margaret Mikulska [[log in to unmask]] inquires:

>Mats Norrman wrote:
>
>>* Karl-Birger Blomdahl should be the only Swedish avantguardist worth
>>mentioning.  And thats because he set the music to Harry Martinssons
>>"Aniara" and made an opera of it.
>
>What happened to Bo Nillson (or Nilson)?

Bo Nilsson (SIC) was left out.  Most of his output from the 50-ies and
60-ies, to which most notacibly "Brief an Goesta Oswald" and "Quantitaeten"
(1958 both) count, is a hypersensible prolonguing of the Darmstadt-School.
He was autodidact and his music is odd and original enough not making me
capable of judging the quality.  However he also composed some music in
impressionist idiom for theatre, like to Strindbergs "Hemsoeborna", but
nothing of this I know is especially skilful nor interesting.  Nilsson
never came beyond the experimental stadium.  Very interesting however is
the arabic influences that coloured him in the 70-ies, and can be heard
in "Nazm" (1973) most notacibly.  I don't know of any commercial recording
unfourtunately.  The latter is interesting because with that he seems to
belong to the core of Swedish composers who seek the common elements of
music in the study of the music of other cultures, and/or wish to create
a world music.  The most prominent representant of them Gunnar Bucht.
Wagners "Parsifal" is for certain reasons an example on a work these
phalanx tend to admire.  They are though more relatives of Messiaen than
Stockhausen, the latter who took another wiew on his oriental studies.

Speaking of "Parsifal" (again); Have you heard Siegfried Wagners 1927
Bayreuth recording of "Parsifal"? The meadow shining and glittering like
Silver after the rain on the Good Friday morning is perfectly the same
mood as when Pettersson begin dissolving his dissonances, if played
Petterssonian........

Mats Norrman
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