Excelsior! Overture, Op.13

Like most Scandinavian composers of his generation, Stenhammar learned much of his art in Germany or under German influence. It was only later, after assimilating the Wagnerian language of the time, that he developed a way of expressing his national identity. The best of the distinctively Swedish Stenhammar is to be found in his orchestral Serenade of 1913 and his Second Symphony of 1915. The Excelsior! Overture, however, was written in 1896 when he was still a young man and clearly inspired not only by Wagner’s example but also by his friendship with Richard Strauss in Berlin. Dedicated to the Berlin Philharmonic, it was first performed by that orchestra on tour in Denmark with Arthur Nickisch. Its first performance in Sweden was given under the direction of Stenhammar himself on his first appearance as a conductor in 1897 - when he made such a profound impression that he was immediately appointed artistic director of the Swedish Philharmonic.

Although it carries spiritual associations for us through Longellow’s famous poem, the word “excelsior” is simply the Latin for “higher.” It was presumably in order to amplify its meaning for a German audience that Stenhammar appended to the score the following (roughly translated) lines from Goethe’s Faust: “It is innate in all of us that our feelings surge upwards and forwards when, invisible in the blue space above us, the lark sings its warbling song, when over stark pine-tree tops the eagle hovers on spread wings and when over land and over sea the crane strives towards its home.” The upward surge is there from the start in the theme soaring on violins over throbbing rhythms on woodwind. A well sustained outburst of passion urged on by trumpet calls, it eventually gives way to a more lyrical version of the same theme on clarinet - the first of several episodes in which ever more expressive variants are featured on bass clarinet, cor anglais and solo violin among others. In spite of recurrent efforts to re-arouse the initial passion, it is only in the last third of the work that the opening theme appears in its original form, now in even more dramatic colouring. Just before the end, after an extraordinary passage of virtuoso string writing, the cor anglais makes one last lyrical appeal which, though supported by other woodwind, is swept away in the closing bars.

Rupert Avis ©2003