Stenhammar: Sangen (The Song) / 2 Sentimental Romances / Ithaka (Wilhelm Stenhammar - Oscar Levertin)

Chronique

Though there were plenty of other fin-de-siècle Swedish composers -- Kurt Atterberg, Tor Aulin, Wilhelm Peterson-Berger, and Ture Rangström, to name a few -- Hugo Alfvén was the only one to rival Wilhelm Stenhammar for sheer, indisputable greatness. Unfortunately, even Alfvén and Stenhammar are generally known only to fans of Scandinavian music, but evidence of Stenhammar's greatness is furnished by this splendid 1982 Capriccio recording of his last major work, the mighty, moving symphonic cantata, The Song. The Song is in two big movements, setting an ecstatic pantheistic text and scored for massive forces: four vocal soloists, an adult choir, a chamber choir, a children's choir, and a massive orchestra. There are echoes of Wagner and Sibelius, with a touch, perhaps, of Mahler, but these are only echoes, because Stenhammar's compositional voice is all his own -- directly expressive, strongly constructed, thoroughly tonal, and above all, highly melodic. Herbert Blomstedt leads his assembled multitudes, the Swedish Radio Symphony and Choir, the Chamber Choir of the State Academy of Music, the Children's Choir from the Adolf Fredrik Music School, plus soprano Iwa Sörenson, mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter, tenor Stefan Dahlberg, and baritone Per-Arne Wahlgren, in a performance that does everything possible to make a piece succeed; they hit the notes with accuracy, intelligence, passion, and perform with the unwavering conviction that the music on their stands is, if only for the moment, the greatest music ever composed. Coupled with Stenhammar's sweet little Sentimental Romances, with violinist Arve Tellefsen and Stig Westerberg leading the Swedish Radio Symphony, and with his strenuous and sensuous Ithaca, with baritone Håkan Hagegård, and Kjell Ingebretsen conducting the same orchestra, this recording is compelling proof that Stenhammar was indeed a great composer. Capriccio's sound, though atmospheric, is not as clean as it needs to be to let all the details of Stenhammar's score emerge.
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