Sinfonia del mare

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.