Gunnar de Frumerie's
music proclaims another Swedish late
romantic. His music, when emphatic,
sounds like Nielsen. At other times
he approximates to late 1940s Alwyn
or early Lennox Berkeley as in the case
of Berkeley's Cello Concerto and the
extraordinarily powerful Nocturne
for orchestra. His music is always succinct
- not garrulous or meandering
The Pastoral
Suite is a work of idyllic innocence,
nimble joie-de-vivre, lullaby simplicity,
and, when at rest, Fauré-like
in its sun-warmed cradling. You might
well know the piece in the version arranged
in 1941 for flute, harp and string orchestra.
The Piano Trio No. 1 is from
the year before and is rather unforgivingly
Bartókian in the first and final
movements relaxing for a lovely songlike
andante amabile. The concluding
allegro con spirito has been
influenced by the witchery of the finale
of Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No. 1.
The piece was revised (I suspect substantially)
in 1975. The Four Studies for
solo piano are all in allegro time
and include the muscular bull-in-a-china
shop Puck (No.1), a motor-hearted allegretto
affabile (not all that ingratiatingly
affable, I thought), a quick pulsed
Toccata-like allegro and a ruthless
allegro vigoroso. The final study
is from 1953; the others from 1943-44.
The Piano Quartet No. 1 is from
1941. The first movement includes, at
5.20, a dignified almost Iberian courtly
curve amid a Ravel-like chatter. The
second movement's hoarse and shadowed
romantic musing prepares the way for
the shivering threat of the intermezzo
(tr. 15) and later its business-like
determination. De Frumerie relaxes into
cheery, sometimes Beethovenian, energy
in the final allegro con brio.
Unhesitatingly recommended
to the legion of admirers of Nielsen,
Alwyn and Rózsa - not that de
Frumerie is any epigone of any of these
people. He is his own man but his often
life-enhancing outdoor vision owes a
little to each of them. Buy with confidence
that this will leave you wanting more
de Frumerie. We must hope that the low
key Caprice and the higher exposure
Phono Suecia will exhaustively record
de Frumerie's music. More please ...
and soon.
Rob Barnett
see also
Gunnar
de FRUMERIE (1908
- 1987) Cello
Concerto
Mats Widlund (piano) 