Wennerberg-Reuter Stenhammar & Hallen [CD]

Pianist Peter Friis Johansson has brought togetherrenowned musicians, including violinist Johan Daleneand soprano Sofie Asplund, for a programme thatjuxtaposes three generations of Swedish composers. Thevocal and chamber works performed here testify to thespecial place these genres occupy in Swedish art musicand to the vitality of musical societies in the earlytwentieth century, which sparked an interest that wentfar beyond easily digestible music.Andreas Hallen is the oldest of the composers featuredhere. His Piano Quartet shows great confidence despitebeing an early work. Like many composers of hisgeneration, Hallen readily incorporates folk elements.Wilhelm Stenhammar produced an important andvaried body of work. His Violin Sonata is a work thatreflects the ideals of his German education: it is absolutemusic without any explicit extra-musical narrativecontent, a 'synthesis of classicism and sensitive poetry',as his first biographer put it. Sara Wennerberg-Reuter isthe least-known of the three, and many of her scoresremain unpublished. Stockholm's only female organistwith a permanent position, she left behind a varied bodyof work spanning a wide range of styles. She distancedherself from her contemporaries with a musical stylethat focused on melody, a commodity she felt had bythen become scarce.