Beethoven changed the course of konstmusikens development. A bit simplified you can say that before him was the ideal for the music first and foremost to please, but after his death in 1827 wanted all composers by rank to follow his example and so create ambitious, challenging and personal works as possible, regardless of whether it was the symphonies, piano pieces or chamber music. It was during the rest of the romance, and this mentality has really just continued with a new expression in the latter-day classical music.
But there was also a parallel track in the century after Beethoven. Composers who admittedly took the impression of the strength and freedom that is found in Beethoven’s music, but still preferred to write music that was easily understandable beautiful rather than trying to refresh and redefine themselves to the notion of beauty. Within all genres, it was perhaps most evident in chamber music, in a safe room far from the symfoniernas big gestures.
Three such works, sympathetically modest and at the same time elegant and sharp, offer a fresh and sunny afternoon by seven musicians from the Royal stockholm Philharmonic orchestra. A nicer way to meet the spring is hard to imagine. The concert is growing in size: the first two musicians, then three and finally a whole septet.
from 1910 and although originally composed for violin and orchestra, but sounds excellent even in this more intimate arrangement with the orchestra replaced by piano. A delightful diptych from Stenhammar’s late period, which includes his two most accomplished orchestral works, serenaden and the second symphony, as well as his last two string quartets.
Then a trip back in time to 1849, and Ludvig Norman’s first piano trio, composed when the then teenage composer, studied in Leipzig. A drömtillvaro for a young Swedish musicians at this time – he got to know Robert Schumann – and this music seems stjärnögd in its respect for tradition. A piano trio that sounds more competent than exciting, but the long slow movement is delicate and beautiful.
with the Hummels ”Septet militaire” for piano, strings and horns. The trumpet part is the reason why the piece is called that it makes the music sound not as a battle but as a relaxed day of celebration at the barracks. It is a work that is not about sublime beauty, rather cosy musical entertainment, and why not? The musicians from Fillan playing flawless, it is just to sit back and enjoy.
