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Songs of the Heart Gunnar de FRUMERIE (1908-1987)
Hjärtats sångar, Op 27 (“Songs of the Heart”, 1942) [11:32] Ture RANGSTRÕM (1884-1947)
Melodi (1917) [1:40]; Paradisets timma (“The Hour of Paradise”, 1924)
[2:21]; Pan (1924) [2:29]; Vingar I natten (“Wings of the Night”,
1917) [1:16]; Bön till natten (“Supplication to Night”, 1924) [2:38] Adolf WIKLUND (1879-1950)
En solvisa (“A Sun Song”) [1:39]; Som mandelblom… (“Like Almond Flower…”),
Op 12 No 3 [2:59]; Serenad,Op 11 No 2 [1:49]; Silkessko over
gylden læst (“Silken Shoe on a Golden Tree”) [3:13] Hugo ALFVÉN (1872-1960)
Saa tag mit hjerte (“So take my heart”, 1946) [2:50]; I stilla timmar (“In
quiet hours”, 1940) [3:04]; Skogen sover, Op 28 No 6(“The forest
is asleep”, 1908) [3:01] Wilhelm PETERSON-BERGER (1867-1942)
Fyra Visor i Svensk Folkton, Op 5 (1892) [7:25] (När jag för mig själv i
mörka skogen går [1:51]; Ditt namn jag hade skrivit [1:08]; Som stjärnorna på himmelen
[3:13]; Bland skogens höga furustammar [1:13]) Emil SJÖGREN (1853-1918)
6 Lieder auf Wolffs Tannhäuser, Op 12 (1884) (Du schaust mich an mit stummen
Fragen [3:46]; Jahrlang möcht'ich so dich halten [2:17]; Wie soll ich´s bergen,
wie soll ich's tragen [2:56]; Hab´ein Röslein Dir gebrochen [1:19]; Vor meinem
Auge wird es klar [2:28]; Ich möchte schweben über Thal und Hügel [2:20])
Leif Aruhn-Solén (tenor); Viktor Åslund
(piano)
rec. A-Studio, SAMI, Stockholm, October 2005. DDD STERLING
CDA1653-2 [67:16]
The
song cycle may have first taken shape, at least in the form
in which we know it today, in Germany in the late eighteenth
century - well before Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte in
1816, the first truly integrated cycle. However it was flourishing
in many other countries by the end of the nineteenth, Sweden
not least.
Tenor
Leif Aruhn-Solén presents three complete cycles in his programme
for Sterling, with extracts from two more as well as eight
stand-alone songs, by six of the most lyrically-minded of
Swedish composers.
The
disc’s title comes from the opening set, Hjärtats
sånger, composed by one of the most refined musical
minds Sweden has produced, Gunnar de Frumerie. The
texts of these six delightful songs are all by his favourite
poet, Pär Lagerkvist, a poet beloved of and much set
by many Nordic composers, Vagn Holmboe not least. Indeed,
according
to Stig Jacobsson in the booklet about half of de Frumerie’s
100+ songs set verses by Lagerkvist. Listening to Hjärtat
sånger the bond between poet and composer is manifest.
The cycle is wide-ranging in mood and texture, from the gentle
opening items, När du
sluter min ögon (“When you close my eyes”) and Det
blir vackert där du går (“You
make everything beautiful”) to the more intense central
pair, the volatile Saliga väntan (“Blessed
it is to wait”) and Ur djupet av min själ (“From
the depths of my soul”). The latter is the emotional heart
of the work, a subtle musing on the fleetingness of life
and love, succeeded by the most ardent of the songs, Du är
min Afrodite (“You are my Aphrodite”), in which passion
spills out. The concluding Som en våg (“Like a wave”) restores the calm and quietude
of the cycle’s beginnings, apt for a poem about rest.
Ture
Rangström wrote well over twice
as many songs as de Frumerie, the best of which have found
a place in the core repertoire for Nordic singers. Of the
six composers represented on this disc, his is the largest
song discography. Aruhn-Solén
presents five songs, two from the 1917 set of five to poems
by Bo Bergman, Vingar i natten and Melodi,
two from set composed seven years later to words by the
same poet, Paradisets timma and Bön till natten, plus the standalone Pan — one of the
most recorded of the songs in this programme, at least
in terms of currently available versions. Aruhn-Solén
opens with Melodi, itsswift, rippling textures
catching the essence of Bergman’s text to perfection.
Paradisets
timma is more impassioned, striking a well-judged contrast before the mysterious,
almost withdrawn atmosphere of Pan. Vingar i
natten is the most excitable of the group, blustery
and dynamic like the restless bird it portrays. Bön
till natten brings the group to a close, a graver,
more lyrical utterance of some depth.
Note
that the order of the texts in the booklet, as with the groups
of songs by Alfvén and Wiklund, are not in the order presented on
the disc. The sequence for the completed song cycles is correct.
The
four songs given here of Adolf Wiklund are all premiere
recordings. Wiklund was sparing in his output as a composer,
mostly in small forms, songs and piano pieces, although ironically
the only other works of his currently available are the two
piano concertos and the symphonic poem Summer Night and
Sunrise. The sun is the subject of the first song, En
solvisa, or rather the metaphor of Måtte
Schmidt’s brief (five-line) verse. Both Serenad and Som
mandelblom… set verses by Bertel Gripenberg whose poetry
Sibelius also set.The texts are unremarkable but Wiklund’s
settings have charm. The last, and longest, of this group
is Silkesso over gylden læst,
a winsome setting of a short verse by J. P. Jakobsen about
newly-discovered love. The poet sings of the girl’s sweetness
and purity, yet the final line hints of the passion to come: “Only
her eyes are dark …”
In contrast to Wiklund’s rather cautious
lyricism, the three songs by Hugo Alfvén are
more assertive in their expressive profile. The much-recorded Skogen
sover is from a set of seven songs from early in his
career and it is not hard to see why it has exerted such
appeal down the years. Both I stilla timmar and Saa
tag mit Hjerte date from the last decades of his long
life and show how his nationalist, late-Romantic style evolved. Saa
tag mit Hjerte, which Aruhn-Solén sings first,
is perhaps the most beautiful song on the entire disc, a
real love song, full of ardour and
heartfelt passion: that Alfvén
was 75 when he wrote confirms how brightly his expressive
candle was still burning.
The
fortunes of Wilhelm Peterson-Berger’s music have ebbed
and flowed over the years. He was undoubtedly a capable composer,
best suited to smaller forms as several of his symphonies
confirm. A noted and abrasive critic, his own works were
not infrequently vilified by other composers he had previously
attacked but the best of his music, particularly songs and
piano pieces, has proved strong enough to survive in the
Nordic repertoire. The Fyra Visor i Svensk Folkton are
studies in writing in a folk-like idiom to gentle verses
by ‘H’— Helene Nyblom. As so often with folk texts - and
unlike the consistently positive lines set by Wiklund - H’s
deal with the loss of a loved one, in the case of När
jag för mig själv (“When I walk by myself”)
of a childhood friend, though it is unclear whether the friend
has died, moved away
or even been in the imagination only. In the following brace,
the causes are certain: in Ditt namn jag hade skrivit (“I
had written your name”) the object of desire has taken “back/The
heart you once gave” and the poet will carry her “grief until … laid
in my grave” while in Som stjärnorna
på himmelen (“Like the
stars in the sky”) death has deprived the poet of her lover.
The concluding Bland skogens höga furustammar (“Among the tall woodland pines”)
has a happier inspiration; poet and friend have moved to
the forest and can look forward to the future.
The
final set may just be the best, Emil Sjögren’s 6
Songs from Wolff’s Tannhäuser. Sjögren’ssensitively
conceived music has made an impact on disc recently, in Caprice’s
issues of his complete violin-and-piano works, which included
some song transcriptions. The Tannhäuser
story fascinated him sufficiently to created two - most unWagnerian – song-cycles
from treatments of it, the first in 1880 to texts by the
Dane Holger Drachmann and four years later the present set
extracted from the 540-page epic by Julius Wolff, whose poems
Sjögren set elsewhere. Stig Jacobsson
hails this as one of this composer’s most admired works and
I would certainly agree — it is one of the finest pieces
I have encountered of his, ranking with the best of the violin
sonatas.
Leif
Aruhn-Solén proves a highly sympathetic interpreter
of the repertoire, slightly outside that in which he has
made his
name: operas and oratorios from Monteverdi to Mozart and
Rossini, although he has appeared in some later works. His
voice is quite small in scale but capable of some power when
required, as for instance in De Frumerie’s Du är
min Afrodite, Rangström’s Vingar
i natten or Alfvén’s Saa
tag mit Hjerte. Better in the upper registers, he is
audibly taxed at the lower end of his range, as at the end
of the first song, Du schaust mich an mit stummen Fragen,
of Sjögren’s Tannhäuser songs. Viktor Åslund
provides sensitive accompaniments throughout and the recorded
sound is exemplary.
Guy Rickards
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