Lars-Erik Larsson

[petershott@btinternet.com]

There certainly is "much more music to hear" - I heartily agree with that!

I've always been impressed by those of Larsson's works I have managed to hear (I'm a little surprised no-one has mentioned a superb Daphne recording of the works for string quartet - my copy has had many a whizz in the CD machine).

I plead guilty to being occasionally perhaps a little too liberal in my understanding of the 'boundaries' of the Forum. But I wonder whether it is wholly correct to categorise Larsson as a 'romantic' composer? No real harm in that, I suppose, but it does rather detract from what I consider most distinctive about his work. Like Britten the young Larsson admired Berg greatly, and I believe was actually taught by Berg for a brief period. And like Britten there is a quite tremendous flair and precision in his compositions - try for example the many concertinos for a variety of instruments and chamber orchestra. They demonstrate a remarkable degree of technical proficiency. Like Britten, Larsson also employs traditional forms. But then, and especially with the large amount of music he wrote for theatre and outside the customary concert hall, he's often writing beyond those traditional forms. Seems to me that 'neoclassical' (however vague that term might be) is more approximately correct than 'romantic'. To be sure, his music is often impregnated with a kind of late romanticism - but that's also true of Britten, William Alwyn, Malcolm Arnold and maybe even Stravinsky. It would be odd to call them 'romantic' composers.

However the important thing is to appreciate the music and not get too hung up about how to categorise it!

[Gauk]

Agreed. As with many things, these labels are defined by their cores, not by their boundaries. One can say the X is the epitome of romanticism, and Y is the epitome of classicism, but trying to define sharp boundaries that put Z in or out is a hopeless task.

[bulleid_pacific]

Surely any composer counts as "romantic" if part of his/her output meets what we agree are our post-classical and pre-modernist preferences.  I hope this means we can discuss those composers who (for example) only composed juvenilia in the romantic idiom. For me, Larsson's First Symphony couldn't be more romantic if it tried so I'd be very saddened if he didn't 'belong' here......

[eschiss1]

As to the violin concerto , can be heard on Swedish radio here (commercial recording, though - from the "Oak grove" label) for awhile yet. (Still, thought I'd point that out...? There's also some works by him in our archive, I see, less commercially released.)

[Alan Howe]

I have let the Larsson thread stand - although I am aware that his music is rather on the outer fringes of UC's remit - mainly because the symphonies are so obviously melodic in ways that the music of his contemporaries isn't. I'm treating him as the exception that proves the rule - or the exception which doesn't violate our remit.

[Mark Thomas]

Let's not get too hung up, please, on the romantic/modernist boundary in Larsson's case. He does seem to me, for the very reason that Alan has stated, to be someone who we can legitimately talk about without creating a precedent. It's always going to be a difficult area and one which I for one approach on a case-by-case basis. Let's also please be grown up and recognise that sometimes the decision on an individual composer writing "on the boundary" is going to go the other way. 

[Gauk]

Boundaries are always going to be fuzzy - there are no sharp lines.

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Some sensible guidance here.

But one thing I can't let pass is Alan's blunt Larsson's symphonies "are so obviously melodic in ways that the music of his contemporaries isn't". Ooooof! Really! If I was a chap who rose early from his bed I'd meet you at dawn with pistols over that one.

No need to discuss further - I suspect, Alan, you're (once again!) just being rather mischievous!

[Alan Howe]

No, not mischievous, Peter. Just honest.

[Balapoel]

I would probably be with Peter on this one. Just within 5 years I can think of several composers capable of very lyrical and melodic works.

Kabalevsky
Barber
Tveitt
Rota
Ginastera

But I understand Alan's point that these were in the minority, not the majority.

[Alan Howe]

Ah, but there's a difference. Listening to Larsson's 1st (1927-8), I find a symphony which could easily have been written two decades earlier. However, I wouldn't say that of composers like Barber whom I would classify as neo-Romantic. Larsson, for instance, could never have written something like the finale of Barber's VC...

What I do concede is that some composers whose music could never be classified overall as 'Romantic' have written the occasional fully Romantic-sounding piece. Barber's Adagio would be one such work.

[Mark Thomas]

Exactly. As Gauk says, boundaries are fuzzy and, as I wrote earlier, it behoves us to be adult about them and not, I hope, adversarial. Anyway, back to Larsson...

[chill319]

While Larsson's well-wrought symphonies could never be mistaken for works by Sibelius, Nielsen, or Prokofiev, one can hear evidence of his high regard for those composers intermingled with passages in his own cogent voice. Those strong echoes alone, I think, locate Larsson's symphonies, despite their dates, within the aesthetic addressed by this forum.

[Gauk]

While Larsson's well-wrought symphonies could never be mistaken for works by Sibelius, Nielsen, or Prokofiev, one can hear evidence of his high regard for those composers intermingled with passages in his own cogent voice. Those strong echoes alone, I think, locate Larsson's symphonies, despite their dates, within the aesthetic addressed by this forum.

Except that I am pretty sure that Prokofiev is well outside the aesthetic addressed by this forum.

[Alan Howe]

He is. And I can't hear anything of him in Larsson's music. Nor of Nielsen, come to that.