With this
most welcome release from Bis all six
of Nystroem’s symphonies are at last
available on CD.
Gösta Nystroem’s
six symphonies are:-
Sinfonia breve
(No. 1) (1931)
Sinfonia espressiva (No. 2) (1935)
Sinfonia del Mare (No. 3) (1948)
Sinfonia Shakespeariana (No.
4) (1951/52)
Sinfonia seria (No. 5) (1963)
Sinfonia tramontana (No. 6) (1965)
Four of them (2, 4-6)
are on Bis. The others can be had on
Caprice (1) and Swedish Society Discofil
and Phono Suecia (3). The most recorded
of the symphonies is No. 3 although
the count for that work runs to only
three versions (Mann, Westerberg, Svetlanov).
With the exception of the Sinfonia
del Mare all the Nystroem symphonies
are rarities and we are not exactly
spoilt for a range of versions of Del
Mare either. Incidentally the Sinfonia
del Mare always struck me as a natural
for Naxos perhaps coupled with Alfvén’s
Fourth Symphony if the timings work
out.
Bis’s customary cultural
rigour is fully evident in the present
disc. It was audacious to record two
previously unrecorded symphonies back
to back. There is a hackneyed piece
of commercial wisdom that tells record
companies that if you are going to record
a rare piece make sure you couple it
with a less exotic work. Bis confidently
kick that trend. OK the playing time
is on the short side but at least the
company did not take the easy way out
by recording just one of these symphonies
and coupling it with a slightly less
obscure piece of Nystroem - perhaps
Del Mare.
The two previous Bis
discs (listed below) were made by the
Malmö Symphony Orchestra with conductor
Paavo Järvi. After seeming to be
the lynch-pin of the Bis-Nystroem Järvi
now departs and is replaced by B Tommy
Andersson who makes his debut with Bis
having previously made recordings for
Bo Hyttner’s Sterling label.
It is extremely difficult
to convey in words the sound of Nystroem’s
music. The best I can do is to compare
it with the tense romanticism of Hindemith’s
Harmonie der Welt mixed with
a little Bartók (Concerto
for Orchestra) softened with Ravel’s
tenderness.
Nystroem was a late
starter in the composition stakes having
also been more than adept in writing
and art. His interest in literature
included Shakespeare. He wrote incidental
music to The Tempest (the Prelude
is included on the same Phono Suecia
CD as the Svetlanov del Mare)
and The Merchant of Venice. The
notes tell us that each movement of
the Sinfonia shakespeariana was
originally prefaced by Shakespeare quotations
- some from the sonnets others from
The Tempest. Again this work
has not gained any form of hold on the
active concert-hall repertoire. There
have however been Swedish radio broadcasts
by Stig Westerberg from a tape of which
I know the work. It was premiered by
Sixten Eckerburg conducting the Gothenburg
Orchestral Association.
It receives a warm
and sumptuously detailed recording that
flatters the composer’s interplay of
transiently gusting furies, Scandinavian
half-lights and mercurial fantasy. The
work constantly cross-refers to the
sound-world of Del Mare; a
work that preceded it by five years.
Nystroem has nevertheless moved on as
the creative dissonances in the Allegro
finale indicate. One can imagine
how the composer, who was also suffering
from persistent meningitis at the time,
must have struggled to write the successor
to what rapidly became his most celebrated
symphony. The second movement reflects
the love of Miranda and Ferdinand. The
other movements flow with variety from
the grimness of Caliban, the wildness
of the storm, the cauldron of plots
and ambition and the nobility of Prospero
although in fact the quotations are
from Sonnets 60 and 33. Although the
composer toyed with the idea of withdrawing
and destroying the work it operates
well as an expression of typically moody
symphonism. If you were wondering there
is nothing shallow, charming or suite-like
about this music and here it really
is most beautifully recorded.
Blessed also with literary
and artistic gifts Nystroem first turned
strongly to music in his mid-thirties.
Even so he continued painting especially
during his tours of the French Mediterranean
coastline. We are assured that it was
these dazzling views that inspired Sinfonia
tramontana taking its title
from the wind that sweeps over the Provençal
countryside 'from beyond the mountains'
(i.e. Tramontana). Frankly this
does not feel or sound like a pictorial
landscape although it is noticeably
by the same composer who wrote del
Mare. We hear this in the spiky
scherzo counterpointed with gun-metal
grey brass at 10.00 onwards in the first
of the two movements. The stormily explosive
moments may put you in mind of Vaughan
Williams’ Fourth Symphony. In the first
movement the slippery ppp of
the violins and violas and then of the
cellos speaks of troubled musings -
midnight thoughts. The composer died
the year after this symphony was completed.
The first movement ends in a fine silvery
glow that is quiet and submissive. The
second is similarly varied in mood and
landscape, nightmare and idyll. Nystroem
is in some ways comparable with Rubbra:
intensely serious without being dull,
prone to fugal moments (tr. 5, 9.23)
but far too freewheelingly emotional
to become stuck in any academic rut.
Nystroem however is fond of the underpinning
of gruff barking bass, rolling timpani
and chasmal tam-tam; moments when the
music refers to a world in savage conflict.
Perhaps the influence is to be found
in the wars raging at the time in the
Congo and Vietnam as well as in the
threat of Nuclear War. The work, which
has never caught on, was premiered after
Nystroem’s death by Stig Westerberg
with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra.
Where next after this?
No doubt Bis will in due time complete
the cycle by letting B Tommy Andersson
loose on Del Mare and Breve.
The series will then be a natural for
a complete box of the symphonies as
has been Bis’s habit for Nielsen, Tubin,
Sibelius, Stenhammar
and Martinů. Beyond that there
are the two string quartets which await
recording. The most promising of those
works, lying in history’s ante-room,
is the grand opera Herr Arnes
Penningar (Mr Arne’s Money).
The indispensable notes
for this most valuable release are by
Stig Jacobsson. He mentions the composer’s
memoirs entitled All I recall is
delight and light published in 1968
two years after his death. That title
was surely more aspirational than actual.
The darkness of the natural and psychological
worlds was part and parcel of the intercession
between his creativity and his audience.
Rob Barnett
NOTES
This disc should be
seen in the context of the other Bis
instalments in this series:-
BIS-CD-782 Sinfonia
espressiva (No.2) (1935-37) and
Sinfonia seria (No.5) (1963)
for strings, flute and percussion
BIS-CD-682 Ishavet
(La mer arctique), Poème
symphonique (1924-25); Concerto
for Viola and Orchestra, Hommage
à la France (1941); Sinfonia
concertante for Cello and Orchestra
(1944, rev. 1951-52)
Also in the background
are two non-Bis discs:-
Svetlanov’s version of Nystroem’s Sinfonia
del Mare is on Phono Suecia PSCD
709:- http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2001/Apr01/nystroem.htm
There is a fine Intim recording of the
two Concertos for Strings:- http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2003/Nov03/Nystroem_concerto.htm
information received
There is a disparity
between the description of Sinfonia
Shakespeariana in the booklet and the
work that appears on the CD. I am grateful
to Guy Rickards for providing the following
note of explanation:-
‘It seems clear now
after various enquiries that the symphony
was originally in four movements: Lento,
Allegro scherzando, Lento, Allegro,
and performed as such in the early 1950s
(conducted by Sixten Eckerberg in 1952
and Dean Dixon in 1954), but by the
time of a 1961 Swedish Radio broadcast
had been drastically overhauled, with
the "first and fourth movements shortened
and changed, the second and third movements
have been merged and shortened into
one". Those comments (in English translation)
were made by a producer,
Tomas Londahl, in 1987 and appended
to what is obviously the original (4-movt)
1952 ms after a comparison in 1987 of
it with a tape of the 1961 broadcast.
‘I have not found out
yet how extensive the revisions were
to the outer movements, but it is clear
that Nystroem replaced the original
trio of the scherzo with a truncated
version of the third movement, excising
the whole third movement as a result.’
Guy Rickards
Malmö Symphony Orchestra/B Tommy Andersson
