Svendsen: Symphonies Nos. 1 And 2

Description

Johann Svendsen(1840-1911)Symphonies Nos. 1 and2The Norwegian conductor and composer Johann Svendsen was born in 1840 inChristiania, the modern Oslo, where his father was a bandmaster. He had hisearly instrumental teaching from his father, learning a number of instrumentsand writing his first compositions at the age of eleven, dances and marchesinfluenced by the repertoire of the local dance orchestra in which he hadstarted playing two years earlier. By the age of fifteen he was able to followhis father's profession and joined the army, serving as solo clarinettist inthe regimental band, although his first instrument remained the violin, whichhe played in the Norwegian Theatre orchestra and also for dancing-classes forwhich he provided arrangements of Paganini and Kreutzer studies. He was able toexperience repertoire of a different kind when, between 1857 and 1859, heplayed in a series of subscription concerts, taking lessons now in order toimprove his growing abilities. In the latter year he met the violinist andcomposer Ole Bull, whose encouragement had set Grieg and the young RikardNordraak on their careers.At the age of twenty-one Svendsen set out to tour Sweden and NorthGermany as a violinist, but was finally obliged, during the course of a winterin L??beck, to apply to the Swedish-Norwegian consul, Leche, for assistance. Theconsul was impressed enough by Svendsen's playing to arrange a scholarship forhim from the king, allowing him to study the violin from 1863 at the LeipzigConservatory, where his teachers included the violinist Ferdinand David,Spohr's pupil Moritz Hauptmann, Ernst Friedrich Richter, soon to becomeThomascantor, and the composer and pianist Carl Reinecke. Unlike Grieg,Svendsen, as Grieg later remarked, made good use of his time in Leipzig, hisinterests gradually leaning towards composition, an interest accentuated by atemporary weakness in the left hand that prevented him for a time from playing.With David's encouragement he was able to gain further experience in conductingand his compositions, which now included a string quartet, a quintet and anoctet, were well received. It was in Leipzig in 1867 that, now completing hisstudies, he finished the composition of his Symphony No. 1 in D major,Opus 4, a work that Grieg later described as showing scintillating genius,superb national feeling and really brilliant handling of an orchestra;everything, Grieg continued, had my fullest sympathy and forced itself on mewith power that could not be resisted. The experience led Grieg to withdraw hisown symphony from further performance and to write on the score the injunction,obeyed until relatively recently, Must never be performed.During the summer of 1867 Svendsen travelled in northern Europe, meetingNiels W. Gade in Copenhagen and visiting Scotland, the Faroe Islands andIceland. His symphony was heard in Christiania in October, the occasion ofGrieg's overwhelmed reaction, but the general reception of the concert of hisown music that h