The music of Einar Englund

[DennisS]

Einar Englund (1916-1999), Finnish composer and pianist.

I discovered this composer through Amazon's "recommendations for you" and was immediately attracted to a piece of music called "the great wall of China". I purchased the cd, which also contained symphonies no 4 and 5. I was immediately hooked!

Englund composed 7 symphonies, 6 concertos (I have all bar the flute concerto - does anyone have it?), plus a large number of other works.

Englund is considered a Neo-classicist and his music is strongly influenced by Shostokovich and Stravinsky, with a nod towards Bartok and also Prokofiev.

Each of the symphonies make most interesting listening : the slow movements are elegiac, the scherzi have tremendous flare ( the scherzo from sym 4 is my personal favourite and could almost have been written by Shostokovich himself!) and his finales are often triumphantly heroic. Sym 4 is my overall favourite and interestingly Englund composed the work to honour the memory of the passing of Shostokovich and Stravinsky. Sym 6 is likewise a favourite and bears the subtitle "Aphorisms". A 6 movement work for orchestra and choir, it is a lovely work, strangely haunting! Sym 2 "The Blackbird", also very appealing, is described by Naxos as being "acknowledged as one of the 20th century masterpieces"!

Who says modern composers cannot write wonderful music in traditional mode?

If you love Shostokovich and Prokofiev, as I do, you are sure to like Englund too (try listening to audio samples on either Jpc or Amazon)!

[sdtom]

I have the "Blackbird" symphony.

[Delicious Manager]

If you haven't got the Flute Concerto, then it seems you have not tracked down the Englund edition of the excellent Finlandia 'Meet The Composer' series. This is a series far better than almost any other 'best of' compilations I have come across and includes important 20th-century Finnish composers such as Uuno Klami, Magnus Lindberg, Usko Meriläinen, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Aulis Sallinen and Kaija Saariaho.

As well as the Flute Concerto (1985), the Englund collection includes excellent complete performances of The Violin Concerto (1981), Clarinet Concerto (1991), Symphonies 1 ('War', 1946) and 2 ('Blackbird', 1948) and 'Epinikia' (1947).