Johan Richard Ohlsson

Johan Richard Ohlsson (born March 9, 1874 in Stockholm ; † July 28, 1940 there ) was a Swedish violinist, composer and businessman. Ohlsson studied from 1887 at the Conservatory in Stockholm and from 1896 at the London Royal Academy of Music with Émile Sauret . From 1902 to 1910 Ohlsson was concertmaster at the Stockholm Kungliga Filharmoniska Orkestern . In 1915 Ohlsson became a member of the Royal Stockholm Academy of Music . After starting a promising career as a violinist and composer, Ohlsson left the field of music around 1915 and became a businessman.

life and work

Ohlsson grew up as the second of seven children in Stockholm. His father was the politician and industrialist Johan Ohlsson. In 1890, as a student for musical performances, Ohlsson received awards, honors and awards in the form of grades. Even as a schoolboy he showed that he was ready for professional musical performance. After accompanying a play in 1887 as a thirteen-year-old violinist, he was accepted by Johan Lindberg at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Stockholm. He later became a student of the famous violinist Émile Sauret, initially in Paris for a few months and then at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where Ohlsson also performed his own works.

Rating

Ohlsson's name is often associated with brilliant violin playing. Although he was concertmaster at the newly founded Kungliga Filharmoniska Orkestern in Stockholm, he did not appear as a soloist. Nonetheless, in Sweden he was predicted to have a great musical career as a violinist and composer. The fact that these prospects were not realized, Ohlsson himself explained as follows. The rich musical life and high musical demands in Europe have shattered his fragile self-esteem. He sold his valuable historical violin and from around 1915 worked in his father's trading company. The economic crisis of the First World War , as well as Ohlsson's reluctance to perform publicly, let him fall into oblivion both as a violinist and as a composer, until professional voices like that of the Swedish music writer Bo Wallner tore him from this oblivion.

Works by Johan Richard Ohlsson

• The raven sun. Opera for solos, orchestra and ballet (This contains some youth compositions such as Berceuse, Barcarolle and Tarantella, which can be viewed as a suite in themselves. 1891)
• Elégie und Valse Carneval for violin and orchestra (premiered 1897, 1922)
• Concert piece for violin and orchestra (1918)
• Three string quartets (E minor 1898, D major 1899, A flat major 1914)

literature

• Johan Richard Ohlsson . In: Carl Dahlhaus (Ed.): Riemann Musiklexikon . 12th, completely revised edition. Personal section: L – Z , supplementary volume. Schott, Mainz 1975, p. 340 .
• Levande Musikarv (Kungl. Musikaliska akademien): Johan Richard Ohlsson. 2018, accessed July 1, 2018 (Swedish). 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Rating according to: Levande Musikarv [2018]