2 Songs

Adagio Op.20 No.5 (1903)

I skogen (1885)

Though known in this country mainly for one or two pieces of orchestral music, Wilhelm Stenhammar is prized in Sweden at least as much for his songs – above all those inspired by verse by his slightly older contemporary Bo Bergman. From his first set of Bergman settings, Adagio is an outstanding example of his essentially modest approach to the art. The vocal line derives directly and unpretentiously from the melodic inflections and rhythms of the words and is accompanied by a piano part echoing throughout with a little rocking figure suggested perhaps by the “svag musik” of the second stanza. One of the earliest of    Stenhammar’s songs – it was written when he was still having the “terribly boring” theory lessons that were just about all the training he received as a composer    – I skogen is an engagingly spontaneous response to Albert Gellerstedt’s little poem. A rhythmically regular but harmonically varied accompaniment, a lyrical melodic line, conventional but effective modulations as the poet turns his attention from orchid to thrush and back again: anything more ambitious would have overloaded the potential of the text.

Jungfru Blond och jungfru Brunett Op.26 No.4 (1908)

Det far ett skepp Op.26 No.5 (1909)

Although Wilhelm Stenhammar is one of the more familiar names among those of the Nordic composers who flourished round the turn of the 19th century, his music is rarely performed here. We hear his Excelsior Overture and his Serenade in F from time to time but scarcely ever his two symphonies and two piano concertos, his chamber music and his piano pieces. Even his songs, which offer the most direct approach to the essence of his art, elude our concert programmes – not least because, apart from two settings of Walther von der Vogelweide and three of Heine, they are all in Swedish (which is still a problem for us with a composer as distinguished as Sibelius, even though we are getting used to Grieg’s Norwegian).

Perhaps the best of Stenhammar’s 65 songs are to be found in his Visor och stämningar (Songs and Moods) Op.26, written when he was in his prime. Certainly, they represent the extraordinary variety in the work of a composer who believed in totally absorbing himself in the poem he was setting and allowing it to dictate every aspect of the music without imposing any preconceived structural pattern or technical idea on it. To take an example not included in this programme, En strandvise (A Seaside Song) Op.26 No 9 is submerged in harmonies not unlike those Berg was exploring at the same time. Jungfru Blond och jungfru Brunett is harmonically very much more straightforward. In fact, it is a masterpiece of sustained comedy, reacting in vivid detail to every fear or scary event experienced by the two girls as night falls and finally, after a discreet echo of the opening stanza, the troll offers his sinister parting threat. One of the longest of Stenhammar’s songs is followed by one of his shortest, Det far ett skepp, another Bo Bergman setting, also folky in style and, although its cheerful ostinato rhythms leave little time for special effects, just as entertaining.