Norway, Finland and Denmark each had a great composer who came to overshadow all others. Sweden has yet to produce a composer with the stature of Grieg, Sibelius and Nielsen. Like England, Sweden has a reputation as a land without music, perhaps better suited for visual and literary art. The fact that Sweden does not have one "big name" composer makes it hard to select one among a generation of very talented composers. We chose Hugo Alfvén, because of his Swedish Rhapsody, bypassing the early Franz Berwald, the neo-romantic Wilhelm Peterson-Berger, whose "Frösöblomster" is a perennial favourite, and Wilhelm Stenhammar who was probably the most distinguished of his contemporaries. A noted conductor and pianist, Stenhammar was never as powerful a symphonist as his friends Sibelius and Nielsen, but he determined the course for Hilding Rosenberg who is today hailed as the father of a new generation of Swedish composers with several big names that are regarded as perhaps the greatest contemporary Nordic composers today.

It has been said that no composer ever sang more lovingly of his native land than did Hugo Alfvén (1872-1960) with his Swedish Rhapsody Midsummer Vigil. The symphony captures all the festive sights and sounds of a St. John’s Eve in the outer Stockholm archipelago. We hear the polska, the walking tunes and the excitement, including the peaceful sounds of the early morning after a very magical night. Hugo Alfvén wrote this, the most internationally successful of all Swedish compositions, in Denmark and on the island of Capri. As a skilled water colour painter, he makes a cinematic painting of a scene in A Tale of the Skerries and the Dalecarlian Rhapsody.

In Denmark Hugo Alfvén joined the famous "painters colony" at Skagen where progressive Scandinavians painters had started to paint from nature in what became known as the "Northern Lights" school. Alfvén is depicted in the famous painting "Hipp, hipp, hurra!’ by P. S. Krøyer together with Krøyer’s wife and other members of the colony. In a film with the same name as the painting, Swedish film maker Kjell Grede explored the love story of Hugo Alfvén and Krøyer's wife.

Hugo Alfvén is best-known for his colourfully orchestrated symphonies, ballets, songs and rhapsodies. In the ballet The Mountain King we follow the story of an abducted maiden up for grabs in a fight between mountain and forest trolls. Before the hero and heroine are buried by the snow trolls we are treated to the Troll Maiden’s Dance, Summer Rain and the famous Herdmaiden’s Dance ("Vallflickans dans") with very Swedish flavors.

In The Prodigal Son ballet which Alfvén wrote when he was 85, he conjures up a Dalecarlian folk painting full of energetic dance and the infectious polka Spring in the Roslag (Roslagsvår) that almost became his theme song.

Hugo Alfvén studied music and violin at the Stockholm Conservatory where his talent was quickly discovered and he was awarded scholarships to make study tours to Germany, France and Belgium. When he was 28 years old, he received the Jenny Lind scholarship, named after the Swedish singer, and spent it furthering his education all over Europe. At 42 he settled down in Uppsala as the musical director of the Orphei Drängar Choir and the Philharmonic Association. He became the pipe-puffing "old man" of Sweden’s national romantic musical ideals and was not very shy of his accomplishments in his four-volume autobiography.

"As time passed and honors rolled in, Alfvén’s creative position grew increasingly static," concluded a biographer, who has also noted that "if Alfvén died an anachronism, historical amnesia should not dull the earlier years when he stood tall in the north as a forceful progressive".

Suggested listening: Alfvén - Midsummer Vigil etc, CHANDOS 9313. W. Stenhammar - Piano concerto No. 1 & Florez och Blanze-flor, BIS 550. Lars Erik Larsson - Förklädd Gud, Violin Concerto, SONY SK 64140

For more information: Swedish Music In-formation Centre, Box 27327, 79 Sandhamnsgatan, S-102 54 Stockholm, Phone: +46 8-783 8800, Fax: +46 8 662-6275.