Not long ago I reviewed
Volume
3 in this series with Peterson-Berger’s
piano music and there I also gave some
background information about P-B, as
he is commonly known in Scandinavia.
Now I have moved backwards to Volume
2, covering the period 1897 – 1903,
which are regarded as his best years.
Most of his large-scale works, the symphonies,
operas and the violin concerto, appeared
later and P-B himself regarded them
as his most important creations. However
to the general public his middle-period
songs and piano compositions are the
best of him. The first two collections
of his ever-popular Frösöblomster
are also roughly from this period. If
you know them or if you are familiar
with, say, Grieg’s Lyric Pieces,
you have an idea of what to expect from
this disc. Even if P-B can be uneven
he is very often on a par with Grieg.
There is a Nordic tone in both composers’
work and it is not always easy to decide
who is who in a blindfold test.
The Six Piano Tunes
are varied in character, from the hearty
Gångtrall (the title meaning
a song that you sing, without words,
while walking) via the bare, barren
landscape of The western mountains
and the calm of the Chorus mysticus
which is a piano transcription of P-B’s
choral song Hvile i skoven (Resting
in the forest). The choral original
is one of his finest compositions in
that oeuvre and on the whole his choral
writing is well worth exploring. There
is, for example, a very fine collection
of songs for mixed choir on Bluebell
ABCD 030 with The Mikaeli Chamber Choir.
Nachspiel is virtuosic and is
played almost nonchalantly, in a positive
sense, by Olof Höjer. This piece
should win listeners with a taste for
"light classics".
Gliding skies
is one of the finest compositions on
this disc, impressionistically inward.
The star-boys needs, I suppose,
an explanation to non-Scandinavians.
These boys are part of the Lucia-tradition,
celebrated on December 13. Then "The
queen of Light", Santa Lucia, originally
a Sicilian saint who emigrated to Sweden
in the Middle Ages, comes with candles
in her hair, followed by her maids,
all dressed in white. Often they are
followed by so-called star-boys, also
in white, carrying stars on long sticks
and wearing high cone-shaped hats. They
also sometimes appear on their own,
as in this composition, where we first
hear them approach in a procession (there
is a march-like theme). Then they stop
and sing, we hear a chorale, and so
they leave again. This exotic tradition
is depicted by P-B in this little piece
which could be regarded as programme
music. On a much bigger scale is the
Norrland rhapsody, where Liszt’s
Hungarian rhapsodies might be the model,
even if P-B loathed Liszt’s technical
wizardry. It is built on several known
and lesser-known folksongs and ends
very calmly.
The Four Dance Poems
are all waltzes and the last of them,
Serenade, is very Chopinesque
and could hold a place in any collection
of piano favourites.
Last Summer
is a sequence of loosely connected pictures
of nature, especially the open landscape
of northern Sweden, where P-B was born
and where he eventually returned and
settled. The suite ends with the rousing
Mountain stream.
Olof Höjer, as
always, presents well calculated readings.
He knows this music better than most
and inflects it so naturally; to the
manner born. You never get the feeling
that he gets in the way of the music;
he lets the music speak for itself.
When it comes to comparisons
there is very little indeed. The legendary
Stig Ribbing (he was born in 1904 and
lived until very recently) was a life-long
champion of P-B’s music. He recorded
the first set of Frösöblomster
on two 78s (Musica SK 19850/51) and
then again in the 50s for HMV on two
EPs (I still have one of them somewhere),
and finally in the early 70s three LPs,
again Frösöblomster,
complete this time, plus a lot more.
On volume 3, which I own, well worn
by now, he plays several of the Six
Piano Tunes and, apart from the
more congested sound, there is little
to choose between him and Höjer;
they are both masters. But I have to
say that Ribbing’s Mountain stream
murmurs more intensely, more mountainously
than Höjer’s brook, searching its
way through the flatter landscape of
southern Sweden.
It should also be mentioned
that this disc was recorded in the 16th
century castle Svaneholm on a Danish-built
instrument, more or less contemporary
with the music. It has a suitably warm
tone. As usual Olof Höjer has written
his own booklet text, and as usual he
gives much useful background information.
Of Nordic piano composers
from days gone by, no one, except Grieg,
is more worthy of being played in the
rest of the world than Wilhelm Peterson-Berger.
This disc is as good a starting point
as any. It has given me a lot of pleasure
and I recommend it whole-heartedly to
anyone wishing to broaden his/her pianistic
horizon.
Göran Forsling
Olof Höjer (piano) 
