Hugo Alfvén

Bronze plaque with the picture of Hugo Alfvén on Stadshuset in Stockholm

Hugo Emil Alfvén  [ ˌhʉːgʊ alˈveːn ] (born May 1, 1872 in Stockholm , † May 8, 1960 in Falun ) was a Swedish composer and conductor .

Life

After Alfvén had studied at the Stockholm Conservatory from 1887 to 1891 , he continued his studies in the fields of violin and composition privately. He was also a violinist in the court orchestra from 1890 to 1892 and then performed as a soloist. In 1897 and 1898 he received further violin lessons from César Thomson in Brussels. In the following years, thanks to a grant, he was able to travel through Europe and continue his studies there.

Since he was young, Alfvén and his family spent many summers in the Stockholm archipelago . Alfvén was a passionate sailor. The sea and the archipelago became important themes in his musical works: the piano pieces Skärgårdsbilder , the symphonic poem En Skärgårdssägen , the symphony No. 4 Från Havsbandet . In Symphony No. 2, the sea and sailing are images of life and death in the symbolic sense.

In 1902 he met Marie Krøyer in Sicily , the wife of the Danish painter Peder Severin Krøyer , whom he married in 1912. The marriage failed and after a lengthy process they divorced in 1936.

In 1903 and 1904 he was a temporary composition teacher at the Stockholm Conservatory. He also traveled to many European countries as a guest conductor. As a conductor, Alfvén mainly performed his own works. From 1910 Alfvén worked as Director musices at Uppsala University . He held this post until 1939. In order to be able to recover from his professional exertions, Alfvén and Marie Krøyer built a summer house in the Dalarna style in Tällberg am Siljanssee, Dalarna. During his numerous stays in Dalarna, a deep relationship arose with this Swedish landscape, which was understood in national romanticism as the “haven of Swedish folk culture”.

He was also very active as a choir director, both in Uppsala ( Orphei Drängar ) and in Dalarna, where he took over the direction of the Siljanschore. Alfvén arranged Swedish folk songs for the Siljanschor and wrote new compositions with echoes of Swedish folk music. Alfvén made successful tours abroad with both choirs (e.g. Norway, USA). After divorce from Marie Krøyer, Alfvén married Karin Wessberg in 1936, to whom he dedicated the famous elegy of his music to the historical play Vi about Gustav II Adolf. Since Alfvén had to give up his house in Tällberg during the separation from Marie Krøyer, he built a new house in Tibble near Leksand am Dalälv with donations collected from the Swedish public . This house is now a museum.

Alfvén, who was regarded as a Swedish national composer, was honored many times; Among other things, he received an honorary doctorate from Uppsala University in 1917 and became a member of the Royal Music Academy in Stockholm in 1908 . In addition to his musical talent, Alfvén had a great talent as a painter. As a teenager he had trained as a painter. Numerous watercolors depicting landscapes, individual portraits and self-portraits have been preserved. In addition, Hugo Alfvén was a gifted narrator: he published his own memoirs in four volumes, which tell in a flowing style of his numerous journeys and adventures.

style

In his homeland, Alfvén v. a. thanks to his compositions inspired by Swedish folklore such as his choral works or his most famous work, the Midsommarvaka op. 19, a name. With his symphonies made Alfvén indeed a remarkable contribution to the Swedish symphonic music, but could be difficult to establish itself as a symphonic composer in Sweden. His fourth symphony, Från Havsbandet , in particular , was probably more appreciated abroad than at home, also because of its pronounced German-influenced late romantic language. In these works, however, folk music does not play a decisive role (with the exception of Symphony No. 3, which was composed in Italy and the slow movement of which echoes wistful memories of the Swedish homeland). Folkloric material is presented in symphonic form in the third rhapsody, the Dalarapsodi op. 47, as well as in the ballet Den förlorade sonen . The ballet Bergakungen (Der Bergkönig) combines folkloric material and extraordinary instrumentation to a high point in his work. In addition, numerous cantatas for anniversaries and other festivities were created as occasional works, which, among other things, were linked to Alfvén's function as Director of Music at Uppsala University.

Alfvén was an excellent technician, who mastered compositional finesse and counterpoint . He had brilliant instrumentation ; in particular the extremely differentiated timbres of his orchestral works are more than remarkable. Here he shows himself influenced on the one hand by the French late romanticism (which he had got to know from his orchestral service at the opera) and on the other hand by Richard Strauss , a composer to whom he was stylistically very close. Altogether, Alfvén, together with Wilhelm Stenhammar and Wilhelm Peterson-Berger, is the most striking exponent of Swedish late romanticism . His works are of outstanding quality; however, his inspiration waned significantly in later years. Alfvén is one of the most important personalities in Swedish music history.

Works

• Orchestral works
  • Symphony No. 1 in F minor, Op. 7 (1896/97, rev. 1904)
  • Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 11 (1897/98)
  • Symphony No. 3 in E major op.23 (1905)
  • Symphony No. 4 in C minor op. 39 "Från Havsbandet" (From the outermost archipelago) for soprano, tenor and orchestra (1918/19)
  • Symphony No. 5 in A minor, Op. 54 (1942, 1952/53)
  • “En skärgårdssägen” (An archipelago) , tone poem op. 20 (1904)
  • "Midsommarvaka" (Midsummer Watch) , Swedish Rhapsody No. 1 op. 19 (1903)
  • "Uppsalarapsodi", Swedish Rhapsody No. 2 op. 24 (1907)
  • "Dalarapsodi", Swedish Rhapsody No. 3 op. 47 (1931)

• Stage works
  • "Bergakungen" (The Mountain King) , ballet op. 37 (1916–23)
  • "Den förlorade sonen" (The Prodigal Son) , ballet (1957)

• Vocal music
  • 9 cantatas for solos, choir and orchestra
  • Choirs, e.g. B. "Dawn by the Sea" (1933)
  • around 60 folksong arrangements for choir
  • about 50 songs

• Piano and chamber music
  • "Skärgårdsbilder" ( Pictures from the Archipelago ), 3 Piano Pieces op. 17 (1901/02)
  • Nocturne in C sharp major for piano (1911)
  • "Il primo amore", waltz for piano (1937)
  • Violin Sonata op. 1 (1895)

literature

• Alfvén, Hugo, Första Satsen, Ungdomsminnen, Stockholm 1946.
• Alfvén, Hugo, Tempo Furioso, Vandringsår, Stockholm 1948.
• Alfvén, Hugo, I Dur och Moll, Från Uppsalaåren, Stockholm 1949.
• Alfvén, Hugo, Final, Stockholm 1952.
• Alfvén, Hugo, Brev om Musik, ed. by Gunnar Ternhag, Södertälje 1998.
• Alfvén, Hugo, Med hälsning och handslag, Brev om musik, ed. by Gunnar Ternhag, Södertälje 2001.
• Hedwall, Lennart, Hugo Alfvén, En svensk tonsättares liv och Verk, Stockholm 1973.
• Hedwall, Lennart, Hugo Alfvén, en bildbiografi, Arboga, 1990.
• Hugo Alfvén - en vägvisare, ed. by Gunnar Ternhag & Jan Olof Rudén, Södertälje 2003.
• Hugo Alfvén - liv och Verk i ny belysning, ed. Gunnar Ternhag & Joakim Tillman, Vilnius 2012.
• Johannes, Per (ed.), Krök Jerk minns Ankarcrona och Alfvén, efter bandinspeling utarbetad av Per Johannes, Leksand 1975.
• Musikrevy, Nordisk Tidskrift för Musik och Grammofon, Vol. 27, 1972, No. 2 (the entire issue of the magazine is dedicated to Hugo Alfvén).
• Rudén, Jan Olof, Hugo Alfvén's composer. Käll-och Verkförteckning. Stockholm 1972.
• Svensson, Sven E., Hugo Alfvén somomaniska och konstnär, Uppsala 1946.

Audio documents

• Hugo Alfvén, Cantatas op.31 & 45, Malmö Opera Orchestra & Choir, Sterling 2003
• Hugo Alfvén, The symphonies & rhapsodies , Royal Stockholm Philharmonic orchestra, BIS 2004
• Hugo Alfvén, film music , Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra, Sterling 2012

Hugo Alfvén as a conductor

• Symphony No. 2, Allegro, Radiotjänsts symfoniorkester, recording 1945 [Phono Suecia, PSCD 109]
• Symphony No. 3, Konsertföreningens symfoniorkester, recording 1947 [Phono Suecia, PSCD 109]
• Symphony No. 4, "Från havsbandet", Birgit Nilsson, soprano and Einar Andersson, tenor, Konsertföreningens symfoniorkester, recording 1947 [Phono Suecia, PSCD 109]
• Midsommarvaka, Stockholms radioorkester, recording 1940 [Phono Suecia, PSCD 109]
• Midsommarvaka, Hovkapellet, recording 1954 [Swedish Society, SCD 1003]
• Dalarapsodi, Stockholm's radioorkester, recording 1940 [Phono Suecia, PSCD 109]
• En skärgårdssägen, Stockholms konsertförenings orkester [Phono Suecia, PSCD 79]
• Den förlorade sonen, Hovkapellet, photo 1957 [Swedish Society, SCD 1003]

Radio interviews

• Interview on the occasion of the recording of Midsommarvaka with the Hovkapellet in 1954, Hugo Alfvén tells about the genesis and the program of the tone poem, recorded on October 8, 1954 [Swedish Society, SCD 1003]

Web links

Commons : Hugo Alfvén  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Works by and about Hugo Alfvén in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Hugo Alfvén  in the German Digital Library
• Sheet music and audio files by Hugo Alfvén in the International Music Score Library Project
• Hugo Alfvén Society