On my reverse travel
through the piano music of Wilhelm Peterson-Berger
I have reached the very beginning, the
period 1883 – 1896. These were his formative
years. In the memoirs he recalls his
meeting with music. It was his mother
playing Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata
and P-B was seven years old. The family
had just moved to Burträsk in the
north of Sweden or rather in the middle
of Sweden. People in Stockholm tend
to regard everything north of that city
as Norrland, but actually Frösön,
the island in Lake Storsjön in
Jämtland, where P-B later in his
life settled after many years in Stockholm,
is situated practically in the middle
of Sweden. Burträsk is not more
than some 100 kilometers to the north
from there.
The family was highly
cultivated, his father could recite
Homer in the original language and his
mother was a very good pianist. She
gave him his first piano lessons and
they used to play piano duets. He also
writes in his memoirs that very early
he started to compose piano pieces which
he gave away to friends and relatives.
As far as is known nothing of this oeuvre
has been preserved for posterity, except
the first piece on this disc, En
Herrskapstrall (A Gentry Tune),
presumably written in 1883 by a 16-year-old
P-B. It is a ditty, maybe, but it is
fresh and lively, a dance tune - schottisch
is still a popular dance among people
interested in what is generally known
as old-time dance music. It is an interesting
fact, although Olof Höjer doesn’t
mention it in his informative and well-written
booklet notes, that this tune became
a hit song in Sweden in the early 1960s.
Adorned with a suitable text and sung
by the best Swedish popular singer ever,
Alice Babs, it was soon hummed by everyone.
Alice Babs, by the way, might be known
also internationally among jazz lovers
for her collaboration with Duke Ellington.
She was born in 1924, became enormously
popular as a jazz singer in the late
1930s. According to some moralizers,
a danger to youth. Later she also trained
her beautiful soprano voice and sang
Bach and Mozart and Elizabethan Lute
Songs and was appointed Court Singer
by the King of Sweden. She is still
singing and, remarkably, sounding almost
as good as she did 60+ years ago.
En herrskapstrall
was probably written for some dance
occasion and as played here is given
the right rhythmic lilt. Dance rhythms
are common features in P-B’s compositions
and among these early pieces we also
find a Valse burlesque which
might have been inspired by traditional
fiddlers. It is quite exciting and also
has a contrasting lyrical middle section
in the minor key, pointing forward to
his mature work. His Valzerino
is, contrary to its title, a grand piece,
playing for more than seven minutes,
and reflects his interest in Chopin.
His two marches, written for weddings
in the mid-1890s, are fresh and melodic,
powerful without being pompous.
The Ladies’ Album,
written in 1895 when P-B was in his
late twenties and on the way to his
break-through as a composer, consists
of seven pieces, which are all dedicated
to female friends and relatives. They
are of very different character, presumably
mirroring the characters of their respective
dedicatees. Some of them are dreamy,
others (No. 6) virtuosic, fiery. We
can find pre-echoes of Frösö
Flowers, which were in the pipe-line,
and also the opera Arnljot. The
very last of them is probably the masterpiece.
His three Tone-Paintings
are fascinating, especially In the
Forest. The long heavy bass notes,
and later bass chords, depict to me
at least, the monolithic trunks of the
pine trees of northern Sweden, while
all around them you hear the chirping
of little birds. Near the end of the
composition you also hear running water.
P-B loved the countryside and you often
find references to it in his music.
Here he goes far beyond being only inspired
by it, rather absorbed in it. The last
of them, Seascape, also shows
P-Bs nature-loving attitude. To many
artists the sea is a threat, an enemy
and many are the paintings and compositions
where man’s fight against roaring waves
is depicted. In P-B’s view the sea is
friendly, mildly rocking.
Just as in volumes
2 review
and 3 review
Olof Höjer is the ideal companion
through Peterson-Berger’s landscape.
I still think the best starting point
– if you want to give P-B a try, which
he is well worth – is Frösö
Flowers. (Swedish Society Discofil
SCD 1097 review)
But volume two has also a great deal
to offer. There Peterson-Berger is an
even more consummate artist than in
the volume under consideration, but
it has been fascinating to hear how
it all started. I will eagerly await
the continuation of the series. I have
already mentioned the booklet notes,
which not only have in-depth comments
on the music but also outline P-B’s
life during the period and give a quite
substantial chronology. There is moreover
a wealth of photographs, one of them
showing his mother at the piano.
Göran Forsling
Olof Höjer (piano) 
