"For most music lovers Norwegian music begins and ends with Grieg, yet in a sense he was complemented by the figure of Johan Svendsen, who was all the things that Grieg was not. Grieg wrote with great individuality for the piano and the voice, while Svendsen wrote for neither, apart from his two sets of songs, Opp. 23 and 24, from 1879. As befits a conductor, Svendsen was a master of the orchestra, for which Grieg had no real flair. Indeed, on hearing Svendsen's First Symphony in 1867, Grieg was the first to sing its priases, recognising that its excellence contrasted with the inadequacies of his own youthful Symphony in C minor, written two years earlier. Even though he and Grieg were close friends, Svendsen never involved himself in the folksongs movement to anywhere near the same extent. The nearest he ever came to it were the four 'Norwegian Rhapsodies'.
"Svendsen grew up in Christiana (now Oslo) with music around him, for his father was a bandmaster. He was already an accomplished violinist by the age of fifteen, and also played the flute and clarinet. His musical schooling, like Grieg's, was in Leipzig, where he studied the violin under Ferdinand David and composition with Carl Reinecke. His Leipzig years were both happier and more fruitful than Grieg's, and it was during this period that he wrote his first works, the Quartet in A minor op. 1, some choral pieces, and the Octet for strings op. 3. Even such early compositions speak with an individual voice and the Octet, the First Symphony op. 4 and the String Quintet op. 5, are all works of astonishing individuality, assurance and, above all, freshness. After finishing his studies in Leipzig and returning to Norway, Svendsen undertook a long tour of Scotland, Iceland and the Faeroes in 1867, return to Christiana to conduct his First Symphony later that year. For the remainder of the 1860s Svendsen lived in Paris, earning his living as an orchestral player and working on a Violin Concerto. In 1870 at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war, he moved to Leipzig acting for a time as leader and conductor of the Euterpe Concert Society. He spent the following summer in Bayreuth where he was much in the company of Wagner, and it was here, of all places that he finished his virtuoso orchestral piece, 'Karneval i Paris' ('Carnival in Paris') in 1872. By this time Svendsen had been drawn into the Liszt-Wagner circle. (Later on, he was to introduce 'Walküre' and 'Siegfried', among other works, to the Copenhagen Opera.) He returned briefly to Norway but in 1877 gave up the direction of the Christiana Orchestra (which he shared with Grieg) to seek greater fame as a conductor in London, Paris, Leipzig and other great musical centres.
"If Grieg had been one of the influences on the early music of Sibelius, then Svendsen played a comparable role in Carl Nielsen's development. In 1883 Svendsen became conductor of the Orchestra of the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, where Nielsen played under him during the 1890s. Indeed, Svendsen conducted the first performance of Nielsen's First Symphony in 1894, and is at the root of much of Nielsen's style. Svenden cannot, however, be regarded as anything other than Norwegian, despite being far more cosmopolitan than many other Scandinavian composers of the day. He remained in Copenhagen until ill-health forced his retirement in 1908, though alas, his creative firest burnt themselves out long before that. After the famous Romance in G major for violin and orchestra op. 26 (1881) he more or less gave up composing.
"Svendsen's music invention blends a liveliness and exuberance with a vein of poetic fantasy not unworthy of the best Grieg. Together with the four symphonies of Berwald, Svendsen's two are the finest to appear in Scandinavia before Sibelius - and certainly more original than those of Niels Gade. Between the two symphonies come the concertos for violin and cello opp. 6 and 7 and the 'Karneval i Paris' op. 9. Begun in New York, continued in Leipzig and finished in Bayreuth, 'Karneval' was an evocation of the festive processions that he recalled from his time in Paris ('the most glorious city on earth' he called it). One its publication in 1877, it was subtitled 'Episode fü großes Orchester' and its brilliant and masterly scoring have earned it a place in the repertory.
"The tone poem 'Zorahayda' op. 11, was composed in Christiana in 1874 and revised in Paris five years later. 'Zorahayda' derives its inspiration from a collection of Moorish legends called 'Alhambra', published by the American writer Washington Irving in 1832. The story tells how one summer evening the beautiful Jacinta is sitting alone in the Alhambra, lamenting the lover who has forsaken her. Suddenly there appears before her a Moorish princess, Zorahayda, who relates how she lost her heart to Christian knight. She promised to adopt his faith and go with him to his native land, but courage failed her and her soul has remained imprisoned in the Alhambra. Zorahayda begs Jacinta to fulfil the prophecy that she will remain the prisoner of evil spirits until released by a virtuous Christian maid. Jacinta baptises her and Zorahayda's face becomes radiant with joy.
"A year earlier, in the summer of 1873, Svendsen had been commissioned to write a 'Festpolonese' (Grand Polonaise) for a society ball in Christiana. The festive spirit and good humour for the resulting work have ensured it a place in the repertory ever since, along with the 'Norsk kunstnerkarneval' ('Norwegian Artists' Carnvial') op. 14, composed a few months later. Svendsen had been elected to membership of the Society of Norwegian Artists whose carnival in 1874 had as its theme the spirit of the cold North and the warm blooded south and its zest for life. Svendsen uses three melodies, a Neapolitan melody from the mid-1830s, 'Te voglio bene assai' by Raffaele Sacco, and a Norwegian bridal dance from Sogn - No. 676 in Lindeman's 'Ældre og nyare norske Fjeldmelodier' ('Older and Newer Norwegian Mountain Melodies'). This was the first occasion on which Svendzsen had ever quoted a Norwegian folk melody. The very opening idea was designed to depict the 'Dovregubbens datter' ('The Troll-king's daughter'), and although the theme sounds as if it is a folk melody, it is in fact Svendsen's own.
"Svendsen's major work of this period was the Second Symphony, completed in 1876 towards the end of his five-year spell in the Norwegian capital (1872-77), and the last large-scale work to survive from his pen. It was first performed on 14 October 1876 when he also introduced another novelty, 'Romeo og Julie' op. 18, a fantasy for orchestra. (Tchaikovsky's fantasy overture had been performed in its original form in 1870 but it is unlikely that Svendsen would have encountered it. It is not known whether he knew Berlioz's dramatic symphony or even Gounod's opera of 1867.) At its premiere in Christian, 'Romeo og Julie' was compared unfavourably with the Second Symphony, and though the 'Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung' reviewed it favourably after its publication in 1879, it remains - along with his other tone poem 'Sigurd Semble' op. 8 - one of his least performed works.
"Although he had little time left for composition after moving to Copenhagen, Svendsen did write a number of smaller occasional pieces, and planned his Third Symphony. Among the shorter pieces without opus number is the 'Andante funèbre', composed in 1894 for the funeral of the twenty-three year-old son of his friend, Theodor Hindenburg. In fact Svendsen's own creative career was shorter than this young man's life, but while it lasted, it promise was hardly less formidable than that of the young Grieg." (Robert Layton. From the liner notes.)
Performers: Trondheim Symfoniorkester, Ole Kristian Ruud
1. Norsk Kunstnerkarneval, Op. 14
2. Zorahayda (Legend), Op. 11
3. Karneval I Paris (Episode), Op. 9
4. Romeo Og Julie (Fantasy), Op. 18
5. Festpolonese, Op. 12
6. Andante Funèbre, Op. 60 Nr. 2
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