Search - Wilhelm Stenhammar, Stig Westerberg, Herbert Blomstedt :: Wilhelm Stenhammar: Sentimental Romances Op28 / The Song / Ithaka

The Song is visionary. Highly imaginative. Buy it.

i.jenkins@virgin.net | Goring on Thames, England | 01/15/1999

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The Song is a 35 minute cantata with some extraordinary music. Stenhammar still shows his Brahmsian roots but his own voice is stronger than ever. Some parts of this beautiful cantata are like nothing else in music, plumbing suprising depths of the human soul. Beautifully sung and well played, this would become so popular if it had it's chance.The companion pieces are all well worth having, especially the romances which, while undeniably sentimental, are also very enjoyable."

A must

G.D. | Norway | 12/21/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This gem of a disc combines several lesser known Stenhammar works; and what amazing works they are. Much has been said of Stenhammar still struggling to develop a really individual voice even at his death in his fifties, but on the evidence of the works recorded here, Stenhammar did indeed possess a personal idiom. Yes, the influences are obvious (Grieg and Wagner are surely there, and Brahms as well in The Song), but Stenhammar still seems to take these influences more as a point of departure than as an attempt at emulating them.



The 35 minute cantata The Song was written to a text by fellow composer Ture Rangström (on request), and the text is not, perhaps, a very strong one (rambling and incoherent and brimful of nationalist elements). But the music is a marvelous journey from darkness to light. It is extremely well written for the chorus and orchestra, and contains some magical passages (as well as long stretches of marvelously evocative pastoralism) in the first part - and the second part contains rich and beautiful late romanticism which is bound to haunt you for days.



The Sentimental Romances, written in 1910, are indeed sentimental, and probably the most forgettable works on the disc. They are decently played by Arve Tellefsen and the Swedish Radio Orchestra under Stig Westerberg, but aren't really works that will leave any lasting impression.



Ithaka, however, is a masterpiece. Most reminiscent of the Grieg works in the same format (Landkjenning, Den Bargtekne), this is a boldly characterized, atmospheric work with lots of touches of Swedish folk music (less out of place than you might think based on the subject). It is probably one of the most convincing and memorable works I have encountered in a while. Hagegård has a fabulously warm voice and the orchestral playing is excellent - indeed, it is not hard to conceive of musicians being inspired to give their best in music such as this.



Overall, this is the kind of music that sounds convincingly individual, yet triggers the feeling of being music that "had to be there", even though it doesn't sound quite like anything you've heard before. It is quite simply immensely satisfying. And the performances are really excellent as well (as you would suspect from a line-up including Hagegård, von Otter and Blomstedt - but they are indeed not the only ones; Iwa Sörenson, for example, sings beautifully in The Song) Strongly recommended"