Wilhelm Stenhammar - Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 1 /Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 23 (1907)

 

Wilhelm Stenhammar

(1871 –  1927 / 56세) was a Swedish composer, conductor and pianist.

 

Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 1  

I. Molto moderato e maestoso - Sostenuto e tranquillo - Agitato 00:00
II. Scherzo: Vivacissimo 15:34
III. Andante 20:19
IV. Allegro commodo - Andante con moto 32:53

Played by Mats Widlund (piano) and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Gennady

Rozhdestvensky.

 

The Concerto leaves no doubt about Stenhammar’s ambition: it is as long as the Brahms Second Piano Concerto (then just thirteen years old) and in the same four-movement form. And while he didn’t get his piano writing from the school of razzle-dazzle[① 눈을 어지럽히는 ② 혼란 ③ 난장판 놀이], Stenhammar does require a heroic span of nearly continuous playing from his pianist.

 

He sets the tone of the first movement (and much of its thematic agenda) in the opening two chords from the orchestra – a minor chord falling gloomily by the interval of a fourth to another minor chord – very much like the pair of chords that opens Brahms’ Tragic Overture. The piano answers with a cadenza of double octaves, and the Concerto is underway with a dialogue between these two elements -orchestra and piano – instead of the traditional orchestral ritornello. After this introduction, the piano plays the main theme, a quiet, songful melody that begins with the same pair of chords that opened the movement. The exposition of the movement has two other themes: an urgent theme, first played by the piano, starting with a rising scale, and a tranquil, hymn-like theme, that in its first hearing is one of the longest stretches for solo piano in the whole Concerto. The development of these themes and the thunderous recapitulation of the main theme, hold fewer surprises than the serene apotheosis of the rising-scale theme (coming out of order, after the hymn theme), followed by the return of the introduction–a return that prevents what promised to be a major-mode resolution and restores the bleak mood of the opening. Having established his credentials as a suffering Byronic artist in this movement, Stenhammar indulges in more of the pleasures of instrumental color, rhythm, and thematic play in the later movements. The second movement, for instance, is like a scherzo of Schumann in its playful conception, but with the more glittering sonorities of the 1890s–especially right at the end, when the action is done and the glitter keeps on glittering. The slow movement (Andante) combines song with evocations of nature. It is full of songful themes, of which the first, begun with a horn solo, becomes the longest orchestral passage in the concerto. At its later appearances this theme continues to belong to the orchestra, though the piano wraps it in flowing accompaniments. The piano enters with improvisatory musings, in the course of which the orchestra slips back in with its opening melody. At the end, piano and orchestra trade roles, the orchestra taking over the piano’s twittering, while the piano faintly echoes the opening song. The final movement (Allegro commodo) has the boldest theme of the Concerto, starting with what sounds like a chromatic distortion of the falling-fourth figure at the opening of the concerto and continuing with a series of further chromatic dissonances. As the theme goes, so goes the movement, full of chromaticism of a playful sort. But when the conclusion seems to be near, the composer, in a move he could have learned from the Grieg Piano Concerto, turns off this music, and we hear something altogether different, sounding as if in our memory. This soft, sustained theme, played by the piano in spacious chords, is made from the same motive as Stenhammar’s song “Lutad mot gärdet,” according to the Swedish scholar, Bo Waliner. The memory seems to be banished when the main theme returns in its craziest version yet, but in fact the ending is more like a battle of conscience, which the remembered theme quietly wins.

 

Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 23 (1907)  

1. Introduzione (attacca)
2. Scherzo (attacca)
3. Adagio (attacca)
4. Finale

Greta Eriksson, piano and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Evgeny Svetlanov

 

His works were quite varied and included two completed symphonies, a substantial Serenade for Orchestra, two piano concertos, four piano sonatas, a violin sonata, six string quartets, many songs and other vocal works, including several large-scale works for chorus or voices and orchestra: the early ballad Florez och Blanzeflor, Op. 3, written around 1891, Ithaka, Op. 21, from 1904, the cantatas Ett folk (A people) from 1905 and Sången (The song), Op. 44, from 1921. Writing in The Chamber Music Journal, R.H.R. Silvertrust notes that Stenhammar's six string quartets are the most important written between those of Johannes Brahms and Béla Bartók. Whether or not this is so, there is no denying that Stenhammar's quartets represent a very important development during the twenty-five years he was writing chamber music. Tonally, they range from the middle late Romantics to a style akin to mature Sibelius. Though not unknown by the Swedish chamber music public, his string quartets have been neglected elsewhere. In 2008 Musikaliska konstföreningen published the world premiere edition of his Allegro Brillante for piano quartet composed in 1891 and his Allegro non tanto for piano trio composed in 1895. Stenhammar was considered the finest Swedish pianist of his time. Pianists who venture into the realm of the string quartet often wind up writing compositions which sound as though they were composed at, and are perhaps better played on, the piano. That Stenhammar's works show no such trait is because for nearly half of his life, he worked intimately with the Aulin Quartet, the top Swedish string quartet of his day and one of the best then performing in Europe. In fact, he toured throughout Europe with them for many years and a piano quintet was nearly always featured on their programmes. Thus it is no accident that his quartets show a fine grasp of instrumental timbre and technique. The part writing is sure, always idiomatic and evenly distributed. Stenhammar recorded five piano rolls for Welte-Mignon on 21 September 1905.