I recently got Symphonies 1 & 2 by Lars-Erik Larrson. I like them both, but after reading his Wikipedia article, I'm hard pressed to believe this guy would have written Schoenberg type works.
I am guessing he could be another potentially "unsung" mostly just to me.
Anyone know much about him? (I'm also interested in composers that dabbled in more avant-garde forms, or were taught by other avant-garde composers, but perhaps took their music to a more tonal period? -- I am sure there are a few -- Copland comes to mind -- but I'm not certain if any would fit in with the music discussed in these forums).
Larsson har written music in many different styles. He started in a general romantic style (symphony no 1), went on to a neoclassical period (serenade for strings), and then, at the end of the thirties, went into a phase when he composed some of his most popular works (Pastoral Suite, A Winters Tale, God in Disguise), in a more mature romantic style. After the war he sometimes wrote music in a more modern style, with traces of Hindemith (Music for orchestra) and Bartok (Violin Concerto), but he also from time to time went back to a more neoclassical (Twelve Concertinos) or romantic style. No matter what style he wrote in, Larssons voice is almost always personal and in a lyrichal mode. Avoid the Music for orchestra, though, if you're not in for more "heavy" modernism. :)
By the way,
if you like the music of Larsson, you also might want to try the music of his contemporary collegues, Dag Wirén and Gunnar de Frumerie. Wiréns symphonies are available on CPO.
I was rather disappointed with Dag Wiren's symphonies, having got so used to his Serenade over the years.
Quote from: Syrelius on Monday 10 August 2009, 21:21
By the way,
if you like the music of Larsson, you also might want to try the music of his contemporary collegues, Dag Wirén and Gunnar de Frumerie. Wiréns symphonies are available on CPO.
Thanks for the suggestions and comments. More music to look into....now if it was just all free.....granted then I might never actually listen! :-)
I am a Larsson devotee and I think his tonal music is grand -
I was bowled over by the beauty of hs 3rd symphony, recently broadcast on Swedish Radio. And his Suite for God In Disguise is unforgetable, and is on Youtube. I am not at all familiar with his non tonal music, nor do have the least bit of interest in it.
While clearly not in the remit for this site, Larsson's music is not to be missed, as his best music is unmistakably romantic in style. It is music I would reccomend without reservation for someone who did not care much for classical music.
The violin concerto in particular is a masterpiece IMO - one of the truly great late-romantic concertos for the instrument. Its neglect is incomprehensible.
I agree completely with Gauk that the violin concerto is one of the greatest of the 20th century. From its opening ostinato onwards it is absolutely compelling. It is in the manner of Prokofiev's, Barber's and Walton's concertos and is scarcely inferior melodically. I've written a couple of brief reviews of recordings on Amazon.co.uk
Thanks for the spelling of Dag Wirén! He gets some play on WBJC-FM in Baltimore, but I never knew how to spell his name (WBJC also plays Larsson from time to time as well)!
Quote from: Revilod on Monday 06 May 2013, 19:43
I agree completely with Gauk that the violin concerto is one of the greatest of the 20th century. From its opening ostinato onwards it is absolutely compelling. It is in the manner of Prokofiev's, Barber's and Walton's concertos and is scarcely inferior melodically. I've written a couple of brief reviews of recordings on Amazon.co.uk
wow..I must hear this...
has anyone done a catalogue of his music?
Chamber
3 Violin Sonatina 1928
6 Duo, vln vla 1931
20 Intimate Miniatures, strqt 1938
31 String Quartet no.1 d-minor 1944
44 String Quartet no.2, Quartetto alla Serenata 1955
55 Quattro Tempi, Divertimento, wind quintet 1968
60 Cello Sonatina 1969
61 3 Pieces, cl pno 1970
63 Aubade, ob strtrio 1972
65 String Quartet no.3 1975
Opera
9 Prinsessan av Cypern (The Princess of Cyprus), opera 1936
36 Sankta Lucia, incidental music 1946
Orchestral
2 Symphony No. 1 in D major 1928
4 Concert Overture no.1 1929
5 Symphonic Sketch 1930
7 Divertimento no.1, chamber orch 1932
10 Sinfonietta, str 1932
14 Saxophone Concerto, altsax str 1934
13 Concert Overture no.2 1934
12 Little Serenade, str 1934
15 Divertimento no.2, chamber orch 1935
Little March, orch 1936
17 Symphony No. 2 1937
18 A Winter's Tale, 4 movts, orch 1938
19 Hours of Day Suite, 6 movts incl Pastoral Suite, orch 1938
19 Pastoral Suite, 3 movts orch 1938
22 Festmusik, orch 1939
23 Jorden Sjunger, orch 1940
27 The Swedish Nation, lyric suite, orch 1941
27.1 Folksong Night, orch 1941
28 Kungajakt, film: Gustaviansk Suite, fl hpschd str 1944
32 2 Pieces, orch 1944
34 Symphony No. 3 in c minor 1945
37 Cello Concerto 1947
40 Music for Orchestra 1949
42 Violin Concerto 1952
45.6 Trumpet Concertino, +str 1953
45.5 Horn Concertino, +str 1954
45.4 Bassoon Concertino, +str 1955
45.1 Flute Concertino, +str 1955
45.2 Oboe Concertino, +str 1955
45.7 Trombone Concertino, +str 1955
45.1 Cello Concertino, +str 1956
45.9 Viola Concertino, +str 1956
45.8 Violin Concertino, +str 1956
45.11 Double-Bass Concertino, +str 1957
45.3 Clarinet Concertino, +str 1957
45.12 Piano Concertino, +str 1957
46 Linden, ballet 1958
48 Adagio, str 1960
49 3 Pieces, orch 1960
50 Variations for Orchestra 1962
54 Lyric Fantasy, orch 1966
62 Due Auguri, orch 1971
64 Raa Rokoko, orch 1973
66 Musica permutatio 1980
Piano
8 10 piano pieces 1932
16 Piano Sonatina no.1 1936
38 Croquiser, pno 1947
39 Piano Sonatina no.2 1947
41 Piano Sonatina no.3 1950
47 12 Little Pieces, pno 1960
56 Easy Pieces, pno 1969
57 5 Pieces, pno 1969
58 7 Little Fugues with Preludes, pno 1969
Vocal
1 A Fiddler's Last Journey, ballad, bar orch 1927
21 Invocatio, for choir and orchestra 1938
12 Folksongs: includes Watercolour; BoxPainter; HerbGirl, mezzo pno 1939
24 God in Disguise, lyric suite, sop bar narr orch 1940
26 Röster Från Skansen, lyric suite for recitation,barytone,choir and orchestra 1940
25 Väktarsånger, for barytone,male choir and orchestra 1940
29 4 songs 1944
30 Det Röda Korset, Cantata for recitation,barytone,choir and orchestra 1944
33 2 songs 1945
35 9 Gullberg Songs 1946
43 Missa Brevis 1954
52 8 songs 1964
51 Intrada Solemnis, for trumpets,trombones, doublechoir,boys choir and organ 1964
53 Soluret Och Urnan, cantata for barytone,choir and orchestra 1966
59 Tre citat, for choir 1969
uncertain
11 The Bright Country 1932
I seem to recall Sym 2 as being in C. Does that seem right?
Quote from: Finn_McCool on Tuesday 07 May 2013, 17:41
Thanks for the spelling of Dag Wirén! He gets some play on WBJC-FM in Baltimore, but I never knew how to spell his name (WBJC also plays Larsson from time to time as well)!
I haven't listened to them in a while, but they used to do some quite interesting programming.
Wirén and Larsson are among my favorite unsungs, I think. I have a few dribs and drabs of Larssen on various discs - I've always enjoyed everything I have. The Saxophone Concertino and ''God in Disguise'', I think; I don't recall anything else offhand save for something on Naxos.
Thanks so much for this list, I can see there is much more music to hear..
I have always been most impressed by the incidental music for a Winter's Tale - four short movements, yet so achingly beautiful, so hauntingly melodic.
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!
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.
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......
As to the violin concerto , can be heard on Swedish radio here (http://sverigesradio.se/sida/default.aspx?programid=2480&sida=1#songlist5513071) (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.)
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.
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. :)
Boundaries are always going to be fuzzy - there are no sharp lines.
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!
No, not mischievous, Peter. Just honest.
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.
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.
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...
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.
Quote from: chill319 on Wednesday 22 May 2013, 04:27
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.
He is. And I can't hear anything of him in Larsson's music. Nor of Nielsen, come to that.
Reading this thread, reminded me firstly to get out and listen again to my BIS CD of Larsson's symphonies no 1 and 2. It has been some time since I listened to them but was pleased to so, appreciating Larsson's skill at composing lovely melodies. I noticed that it was suggested that the symphonies recalled Prokofiev a little. As Alan also said, I hear nothing of Prokofiev in the symphonies. What really caught my eye in this thread though, was the reference made by Gauk to Larsson's VC, especially as it there was mention of some suggestion of Prokofiev and Barber. I hugely enjoy the Barber VC (intensely lyrical) and am an out and out lover of all of Prokofiev's music. I therefore downloaded the Larsson VC after having listened to soundbites. Since then, I have listened to the VC a number of times and have liked what I heard. I would agree that I was reminded at times of Prokofiev's first VC. Like Prokofiev, Larsson has composed a VC to fully exploit the violin's register and is because of that, very interesting. I feel however that Larsson's VC is not as lyrical as Prokofiev's but nevertheless, is very enjoyable. I am pleased to have this VC in my collection. Thank you Gauk for referring me to it.
My pleasure! Actually, the concerto I'm reminded of most by Larsson's is Walton's - really just for the lyrical mood and soaring lines.
I was drawn to the music of Larsson by its rich melodic nature.
If Larsson's music is akin to Berg then Heavy Metal is akin to Mozart.
Berg's influence was miniscule (if at all). Moreover, to imply Larsson does not fit into the general realm of romantics
and/or the domain of this forum is quite odd if your mandate is to share great wholesome music.
If the limitation is upon the basis of chronology, that is quite another (more valid) issue.
The composer of "God in Disguise" should be enjoyed by everyone and I trust this forum will not exclude discussing
him.
Quoteif your mandate is to share great wholesome music.
No, actually, that's not our mandate. Our mandate is fully explained here (http://www.unsungcomposers.com/forum/index.php/topic,3681.0.html). Bach and Mozart, for example, undoubtedly wrote great and wholesome music, but they have no place here.
Sorry I missed this, Mark..so be it..
"and in any event if the music was written after 1918, please email or PM a moderator before posting."
I just received a CPO recording of his second symphony and was quite impressed by what he wrote. It is well written and certainly within the UC guidelines yet the next work Variations for Orchestra was definitely out of bounds. Almost like two different composers.
The 2nd symphony's a fine memorable work imho (if I hadn't been able to remember it, I would have wondered "what -was- that piece?" except that the announcer broadcast it a later time, I recognized it, this time I caught the name- hence memorable.)
I don't hear much Prokofiev in Larsson, either. He seems to exist in roughly the same sound world as his contemporary Peterson-Berger: clearly-identifiable 20th-century nordic romanticism. Not quite as stylistically old-fashioned as Halvorsen, but a bit more restricted than, say, Atterberg.
What I really like about Larsson – apart from a great sense of melody and structure – is that he has the courage to work in smaller forms: modest ensembles, with often restrained orchestration that makes for very effective orchestral dynamics.
Very much a composer who has works that fit in to our forum
I hear echoes of Prokofiev in patches of Larsson's wartime Symphony 3, particularly in the later movements. In the first movement it's clear he was impressed by Carl Nielsen's Symphony 3. I listen with pleasure to Larsson several times a year but more to hear an incisive musical mind than an original musical voice. (It's not a black-or-white dichotomy, of course.) If Larsson is appropriate to this forum, then I urge curious members who have not heard them to try Hakon Borresen's symphonies on CPO. They occupy a similar finely-wrought-if-not-terribly-original niche, and their aesthetic is closer to this forum's core.
Borresen is yet another in a long list of composers I'm not familiar with at all.
QuoteBorresen is yet another in a long list of composers I'm not familiar with at all.
That makes two of us with a long list.
In his first symphony Borresen is perhaps the purest clone of Tchaikovsky ever -- and to my taste he pulls it off.
In the later symphonies Boressen is less Tchakovsky-like. He hasn't the rhythmic thrust that makes Larsson's symphonies so memorable, but he does late Romantic well. Plus, he may be the tallest composer ever, which makes a long list even longer.
Borresen can't really be compared with Larsson - he's of an earlier generation altogether. Nevertheless, his music is well worth anyone's time and effort, particularly the three symphonies, excerpts from which can be found at jpc:
https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/cpo/detail/-/art/Hakon-B%F6rresen-1876-1954-Symphonie-Nr-1/hnum/8317863 (https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/cpo/detail/-/art/Hakon-B%F6rresen-1876-1954-Symphonie-Nr-1/hnum/8317863)
https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/cpo/detail/-/art/Hakon-B%F6rresen-1876-1954-Symphonien-Nr-2-3/hnum/7389011 (https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/cpo/detail/-/art/Hakon-B%F6rresen-1876-1954-Symphonien-Nr-2-3/hnum/7389011)
QuoteI seem to recall Sym 2 as being in C. Does that seem right?
Haven't seen the score (which does not declare a key in its title), but based on the recording by the Helsingborg SO under Frank Symphony 2 begins in E minor and ends in E major.
As the person I think you may have been quoting there, my mistake and thanks for the correction...
His first symphony is definitely Tchaikovsky. I like it.