Composers

Hugo Alfvén is one of Sweden’s best-known and best-loved composers. His abundant output mainly comprises virtuoso orchestral music, romantic solo songs and choral songs in folk idiom.

Atterberg’s musical strength ranges from clear and brightly melodious compositions on a small scale to grandly conceived symphonic works. His unflinching aim was to create living, substantial parts both for the melodic foreground and for the surrounding strata of the accompaniment. The solidity and saturation of his scores is also partly the result of an extensive knowledge of instrumentation.

Franz Berwald belongs to the foremost Swedish composers of all times. Not least in his symphonies and in his chamber music he stands out as a prominent figure in Scandinavian 19th century music.

Karl-Birger Blomdahl was a dynamic "natural“ who in time rose to be a leading Swedish music debater. A vivid personality, he worked energetically in a variety of fields.

A composer in a constant state of development - It’s hard to detect any clear periods in Börtz’s works, and in this respect, he differs from other contemporary Nordic composers like Per Nørgård and Sven-David Sandström. As with Börtz’s great idol Bruckner, his compositional technique is subject to continual development, with a personal style - quite unique right from the start - that constantly derives nourishment from new experiences.

Tobias Broström describes his music as full of frenzy and power appearing in attacks and waves. Although the rhythm is an important component in Tobias' music - he is a percussionist himself - is he a pronounced composer of harmonies.

As an arranger and composer, primarily of music for children and youth, Anna Cederberg-Orreteg has become very much appreciated by choir leaders and fellow music teachers.

Shortly after receiving his diploma in composition the composer Jörgen Dafgård in 2000 was awarded first prize in a composition competition sponsored by the Swedish Radio and the Berwald Hall for his contribution Veils for orchestra. Within a year Veils was performed at altogether four well-attended concerts, first by the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and then by the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra. The first performance was broadcast in many countries around the world.

Eklund's artistic temperament is made up of aggressive power and a plaintive introversion. His humour is equally obvious, but also equally ambivalent, oscillating between the exuberantly burlesque and more complicated, grotesque eruptions.

His music grips the heart and reaches inside the soul – the soul of the music. His personal path leads inwards, towards the core of the divine, and outwards, towards the universal.

de Frumerie has attained a powerful position in Swedish music by virtue of an exuberant fantasy which derives its inspiration from several different sources. They include various idioms of folk music and numerous elements of traditional art music, e.g. the dance suites of the Baroque, variation forms and the refreshingly elegant musicality of the classical period. The piano plays a prominent part in his creativity, and his output includes a long succession of works such as sonatas, suites and works for piano and orchestra.

In his way Haglund is a romantic, but his music lacks vanity and is well beyond the insouciant use of effects that typifies neo-romanticism. As Erik Wallrup once so aptly said, Haglund’s music “tunes” its audience in the way that a musician tunes an instrument.

Bo Hansson is one of the most versatile Swedish composers and his rich output is widely spread. He is also an experienced guitarist and teacher and has been a tutor for many students in the young generation of Swedish guitarists.

There is no doubt that Haug´s music is firmly rooted in the Nordic symphonic tradition; from these roots has grown a musical world full of strong emotion, drama and intellect, reflecting the composers personality, feelings, temperament, courage, strength and originality.

Transgressing boundaries, musical as well as hierarchical, is something of a hallmark for composer Fredrik Högberg, who seems to have a very close relationship to his own homo ludens - the playful human being.

Johan Hugosson is one of Swedens up and coming young pianists. He performs regularly in Sweden and England in recitals and as a chamber musician. As soloist Johan has played Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Grieg, Brahms and Rachmaninov concertos with orchestra.

Gunnar Idenstam, born in in the far north of Sweden, is a concert organist, composer, arranger and folk musician. In 1984, he was awarded 1:st prize in the prestigious improvisation competition "Grand Prix de Chartres" and since then his career has taken him to many parts of the world.

”There is a voice in the melodic arches, you can see the footprint but not the foot that makes it.” With these words Thomas Jennefelt describes one of his orchestral works, Musik vid ett berg (Music by a Mountain) (1991-92). For it just so happens that this Swedish composer of choral music, operas, orchestral works and chamber music must always hear an inner voice – with or without intelligible words, in a poetical text of his own or others – to be able to create his music, be it vocal or instrumental.

Karkoff has given a voice to his impassioned, very engaged artist’s nature through an impressive array of works. His great capacity for form and constructions has also helped, rather than hindered, his natural sensitivity for the impulsive and spontaneously powerful.

I aim for a simple, clear, melodic style, often with elements of folk tone and with a definite rhythmic profile. I want the harmonies to be uncomplicated. The older you get, the more clearly you become aware of the importance of melody.

In his constant striving for the greatest possible simplicity in musical style, Lars-Erik Larsson exploited his remarkable technical and formal skill. This simplicity, in conjunction with a stream of melodic inspiration and a lyrical-poetical attitude, has made Lars-Erik Larsson one of the most popular Swedish composers of all time.

Ingvar Lidholm is one of the classics of new Swedish music. Tradition is important to him, from antique drama to renaissance vocal polyphony. Still, he is a renewer; to simply write according to a formula would be impossible for him. He seeks the unique in each work he composes.

To try to categorise the music by Nils Lindberg is virtually impossible. The well-known Swedish music critic Seth Karlsson once described him as a kind of musical knight, riding on the frontiers of music. He sees Nils as someone who resides in a musical borderland. As his coat-of-arms he bears the triangle. One corner represents jazz, one symphonic works and the third folk music.

Oskar Lindberg came of a dynasty of folk musicians, and his own musical output was profoundly influenced by folk music and the scenery of his native countryside. His music is National-Romantic in the best sense of the term, with touches of Rachmaninov, Sibelius and French impressionism.

The translucence of his melodies and the liveliness and distinct contours of his pieces have made Bo Linde a highly respected and much loved composer. His conscientious working approach was always aimed at achieving a solid but at the same time spontaneously accessible result.

Rolf Martinsson is one of Sweden’s internationally most represented contemporary composers. During the past few years, his music has been performed in several countries, in venues such as New York, Vienna, Paris, London, Berlin, Prague, Madrid and Tokyo.

The important position that Arne Mellnäs holds as a technical innovator and introducer of avant-garde styles to Swedish music can hardly be overestimated. The breadth of his understanding of the capabilities of different instruments is quite astonishing. The results of his explorative energy during the expansive 1960s crystallized into a personal musical language full of diverse moods.

Eva Nivbrant Wedin is a Swedish Eurhythmic teacher. She graduated from Malmö Academy of Music in 1979 and continued her further studies at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm 1991 and 1998. She also combined the music studies with studies in Educational Sciences at Linköping University 1990 and in Psychology at Stockholm University 1994.

Nordqvist composed on a small scale, but his output is impressively large and several of his 200 or more solo songs have become indispensible parts of the Swedish art song repertoire.

A salt-stained composer with the sea in his blood

Gösta Nystroem is usually reckoned among the first generation of Swedish modernists, i.e. the group of composers who made their début around the time of the First World War and who felt a strong need once the war was over to open the gates to Europe and the rest of the world. Nystroem, Hilding Rosenberg, Moses Pergament and the others wanted to get rid of stale romanticism and be a part of the new movements. They travelled abroad and eagerly absorbed the peacetime optimism on the continent and the belief in the future, the new spirit of the machine age and the audacious freshness of the glamorous twenties.

Anders Paulsson is regarded as one of the foremost soprano saxophonists in the world. The fact that he is equally at home in a wide range of musical styles – in the classical repertoire with transcriptions of Bach and Mozart, in original compositions by contemporary composers and in jazz – is evidence of the breadth of his musicianship.

Perder's music has been performed in over a dozen countries in Europe and North America and been recorded by several labels. His list of works includes chamber music, orchestral music, a vast production of choral works, a concert mass and operas.

Sixteen completed symphonies and the symphonically conceived concertos for violin and viola make Allan Pettersson (1911-1980) one of Sweden’s foremost 20th century symphonists. With its direct appeal and powerful imagery, Allan Pettersson’s music belongs to a Scandinavian tradition with Carl Nielsen and Jean Sibelius as the leading names, but his temperament is more intense and the conflicts in his music more bitter. Allan Pettersson’s music has also been choreographed and used in films and television documentaries.

“Perhaps indeed my interest in music sprang from poetry, for it was the word, the ardent word of the poet, that aroused my remorseless desire to compose.“ Ture Rangström preferred to call himself a “song poet“, and it is as one of our leading vocal composers that he has acquired an international reputation.

Karin Rehnqvist is one of Sweden’s most wellknown composers, whose music is both frequently and widely performed. She has composed chamber, orchestra and vocal music and works gladly with unusual and intermedial concert forms.

It would be hard to overestimate the central role of the instrumentalist, conductor and composer Johan Helmich Roman in the cultural life of Sweden during the Era of Liberty. The golden age of the Swedish Chapel Royal began with him, and he also organized the "Cavalier Concerts" in the House of the Nobility, which were the first public concerts ever given in Stockholm.

During a long life and a very long period of creativity, Rosenberg was able to enrich the Swedish musical treasury with an extensive output of all kinds. There are lingering traces of national romanticism in his early works, but he will always be referred to with veneration as our first great modernist.

Marie Samuelsson's works are often physical and contain virtuosic parts. For the listener the music is exciting in its rhythm and at the same time beautiful in an almost impressionistic way, without ever abandoning her strong creative conviction and consistency, which have become her hallmarks.

Jan Sandström is one of Sweden's most well-known composers, both at home and overseas. He is associated particularly with the highly evocative Motorbike Concerto, which has been performed the world over by trombonist Christian Lindberg.

No composer has made such an impression on contemporary Swedish musical life as Sven-David Sandström. His catalogue of works, which includes some 300 compositions, gives proof not only of an impressive productivity, but also contains an amazingly wide range: everything from magnificent operas and oratorios to intimate choral and chamber music.

In 1998 Albert Schnelzer won the competition Composers of Tomorrow with the orchestral work Erupto. The international breakthrough came with the world premiere of his piano trio Predatory Dances at the Présence Festival in Paris in 2004. Today his music is frequently performed by orchestras and chamber musicians in Sweden and abroad.

"To write music is both natural and important for me. That music is derived through feelings, experiences, everything that life embodies, yes everything that is meant by beeing human, is fantastically inspirational."

Lille Bror Söderlundh was a musician of many talents, who composed ballads and wrote music for variety shows, for the theatre, for ballets and for films. He wrote music for children and he also composed profoundly serious music.

Music that you cannot frame into but it explodes from a new and original source

Wilhelm Stenhammar is one of the finest and most versatile of Swedish composers. He has become with his long and impressive sequence of orchestral works, chamber music and songs, a cornerstone of Swedish musical literature and acquired a world wide audience.

Mirjam Tally, who hails from Estonia, has lived and worked at the island of Gotland in Sweden since 2006. Sounds and timbres are central in her music, which abounds with playful contrasts.

Tubin is recognised as an outstanding symphonist in Sweden and elsewhere and revered as the national composer of Estonia.

Composer and Lyric Tenor

Jonas Valfridsson's music is appreciated for it's colorful instrumentation, subtle textures and mysterious beauty.

As a composer Adolf Wiklund had a relatively small, but well-crafted output. His temperamental orchestration and the craftsmanship of his writing fully deserve respect.

“Honest, straight to the point, balanced but uncompromising - such was the personality of the Swedish composer Dag Wirén. The same can be said of his music: it never tries to be anything but itself, it addresses the listener directly, it obeys unswervingly its own laws.”