Josef Jonsson - Symphony No.1 in B minor "Nordland", Op.19 (1922)

Josef Jonsson

(21 june 1887 in Enköping - 9 may 1969 in Norrköping) Swedish composer and music critic.

 

Symphony No.1 in B minor "Nordland", Op.19 (1922)  

Mov.I: Allegro energetico poco agitato 00:00
Mov.II: Andante quasi adagio 10:31
Mov.III: Allegretto pastorale 23:51
Mov.IV: Molto adagio - Allegro vivace 28:55

Orchestra: The Norrköping Symphony Orchestra

Conductor: Lü Jia

To general music listeners in Sweden he is mainly – if at all – known as a composer of vocal music. He set poems by a number of the foremost Swedish poets, Pär Lagerkvist, Dan Andersson, Erik Axel Karlfeldt and
Erik Gustaf Geijer among them and he wrote a lot of church music; his Missa Solemnis (1936) was regarded as “a Swedish masterpiece” by Kurt Atterberg. But he also composed orchestral music, including three symphonies,
and his main influence was Max Reger, which shows not least in his frequent use of chromaticisms.

His first symphony – Herbert Connor in “Svensk musik Vol. 2” actually calls it a symphonic poem – is a monumental, solemn work. Its title “Nordland” refers to the poems – or rather excerpts from poems – that head each movement
and that “reflect different aspects of typically Nordic nature and temperament” as Stig Jacobsson writes in his commentaries. But that doesn’t mean that this is programme music cast in a national romantic mould,
picturesque tone painting à la Hugo Alfvén. Jonsson uses the poems as mood setters and formally the outer movements are set in strict sonata form. There is a tendency, though, for him to overload the music;
there are so many ideas, so many motifs that are never fully developed.

Who is the warrior
that commands the ships,
and lets his golden banner
wave o’er his prow?
No peace seems to me
in that ship’s front;
it casts a warlike glow
around the Vikings.

This quotation from the Icelandic Edda, in William Reaves’ translation, heads the first movement, and there is indeed a warlike atmosphere in the opening motif, rhythmic and aggressive, fanfare-like, which recurs in various
guises throughout the movement. More lyrical episodes create suitable contrasts but the lasting impression is one of forward movement and energy.

The second movement is inspired by a poem by Jacob Tegengren that starts:

The forests taught me to sing,
the wind whispering in the reeds.
The pine trees’ soughing harps
have but few strings
and their songs are mostly sombre. –
But now and then from summer meadows
sunshine and bright colours
stole into the poem’s dark weave.

and that’s exactly what the music says. It is quiet, murmuring, dark coloured but from ca 5:00 it gradually builds up to a climax at 5:47, whereupon it sinks back to almost a stand-still. At ca 7:00 there is a livelier,
more chamber music-like episode, but the sombre atmosphere soon takes over again.

The short Allegretto pastorale, is in sharp contrast to the previous movement, dancing, boisterous, full of joy. It starts with A horn signal from a sunny mountain pasture, as Karl Erik Forsslund’s poem says, and this signal
appears again and again throughout the movement. But in the finale we are at once back in the darkest darkness, which persists through the Molto Adagio part, even though there are rays of light shining through the gloomy
atmosphere. At about 4:30, after a couple of harp arpeggios, the music changes character: now it is lively, airy – but that doesn’t last for long. The rest of the long, maybe overlong, movement is built on the contrast between
light and darkness. Near the end a solemn chorale appears, grows to a climax and then dies away in a gossamer Nordic twilight.

There is such freshness about this symphony and Jonsson’s orchestration fits like a glove. Although the basic character is solemn it is so full of rhythmic vitality and power that it should appeal to anyone with a taste for late-romantic orchestral music.