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.
| Symphony 4 1st movement - allegro (from
2'40) sample
|
| Symphony 4 1st movement - lento (from
6'10) sample
|
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.
| Symphony 4 2nd movement - Allegro Scherzando sample
|
| Symphony 4 3rd movement - opening sample
|
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).
| Symphony 6 1st movement - opening sample
|
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.
| Symphony 6 1st movement - 10.00 onwards sample
|
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.
| Symphony 6 2nd movement - ending sample
|
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.uk.net/classrev/2001/Apr01/nystroem.htm
There is a fine Intim recording of the two Concertos for Strings:- http://www.musicweb.uk.net/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 