Atterberg: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 8

“Järvi’s approach...vividly evokes the natural elements of the Symphony, the movement of Swedish waters, birdsong and flight (wild geese?). There is so much more of a sense of cinematic splendour in Järvi’s reading.” --MusicWeb International, 24th February 2014

“Jarvi ups the tempi considerably, reining in the cental climax to throw the expressive weight on to the final bars...I look forward to Jarvi's third instalment.” --Gramophone Magazine, March 2014

“Exuberantly fresh-air symphonies, expansively performed here.” --BBC Music Magazine, May 2014 *****

Neeme Järvi and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra present Vol. 2 in their series of the Symphonies of Atterberg. It is part of a larger recording project focussed on Scandinavian music, which has already seen Neeme Järvi give highly regarded performances of works by the Norwegian composers Halvorsen and Svendsen with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra. During his lifetime, Kurt Atterberg was the most renowned Swedish composer both at home and abroad, as well as a successful conductor, critic, and administrator. He was a composer of clearly structured and brightly melodic music, whose large orchestral output includes nine symphonies, of which the Third and Sixth have already been released.

Symphony No. 2 was started in 1911 when the twenty-four-year-old Atterberg was still a student of engineering. It was originally conceived and premiered as a two-movement work, but after a hostile critical response Atterberg added a third movement. Like much of Atterberg’s music the symphony is deeply rooted in tradition, following classical forms closely but filling them with harmonies and melodies inspired by Swedish folk music. Atterberg composed the Eighth Symphony in 1944. It features a rich tapestry of Swedish folk material which Atterberg gave fresh harmonies. A playful, vigorous, and light piece, the symphony was well received at its premiere in 1945, even soliciting a congratulatory telegram from Sibelius.

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Atterberg: Symphonies Nos. 4 & 6

“The Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra under Neeme Järvi seems to give a perfect account of these works. I do not know these pieces in any other versions, but the performance here is ravishing and totally persuasive...Kurt Atterberg’s music is something of a revelation...an attractive mix that is always well-wrought, sometimes downright moving and always interesting.” --MusicWeb International, April 2013

“Järvi's is the truest and most opulent [Sixth Symphony]...The couplings are equally beguiling...Järvi's accounts of these at least match their rivals and together comprise an excellent start to the series.” --Gramophone Magazine, June 2013

Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Neeme Järvi

Back in 2010, Neeme Järvi commenced his Scandinavian project with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, offering up idiomatic performances of orchestral works by two of Norway’s best-loved composers, Johan Halvorsen and Johan Svendsen. Similar in its approach, this new survey turns to Norway’s neighbouring country, with Järvi conducting the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra in orchestral works by the Swedish composer, Kurt Atterberg.

Atterberg was one of Sweden’s leading composers of the twentieth century, not to mention a conductor, critic, and founder of The Society of Swedish Composers. Largely self-taught, he developed a compositional style which initially owed much to Brahms and Alfvén, although he was more inclined to paint vivid, loosely structured melodic pictures than to adhere to the traditional classical frameworks. Tuneful, accessible, and fairly folkloristic too, Atterberg’s music became more impressionistic by World War I, and it was around this time that he composed most of the works on this disc.

Symphony No. 4 (1918) was composed in friendly competition with a Swedish colleague, Natanael Berg. They had decided that each should compose a work lasting no longer than twenty minutes, and that a bass tuba should be heard in ‘splendid isolation’ somewhere in it. The resulting piece by Atterberg is full of humour and wit, the language open and simple, and strongly inspired by Swedish folk music.

That same year, Atterberg was asked to write music to Maurice Maeterlinck’s play Sœur Béatrice. For the theatre performance itself, he only had three musicians at his disposal, playing violin, viola, and harmonium. A few years later, however, he reworked the harmonium part of extracts from the incidental music for string orchestra, retaining the solo violin and viola, after which this became known at Suite No. 3, a work filled with beauty and passion, and ultimately one of his most frequently performed pieces.

For many years, the only work by Atterberg that circulated widely outside Sweden, in performance, recording, and notoriety, was his Symphony No. 6, for which in 1928 he won a prize awarded by the Columbia Gramophone Company for a work in the spirit of Schubert, who had died 100 years earlier.

En värmlandsrapsodi (1933) was written to mark the seventy-fifth birthday of the 1909 Nobel Prize laureate in literature, Selma Lagerlöf, and it was performed for the first time in a live broadcast by Swedish Radio. Upon hearing the piece, Lagerlöf wrote to Atterberg: ‘It was a solemn moment when we heard the rhapsody streaming from the radio. We listened with great joy and excitement and were made happy by the echo of melodies from Värmland. May the piece live and win the people’s ear.’

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