Wilhelm Peterson-Berger


Olof Wilhelm Peterson-Berger was a Swedish composer and music critic. As a composer, his main musical influences were Grieg, August Söderman and Wagner as well as Swedish folk idiom.

The composer

Peterson-Berger studied at the Stockholm Conservatory from 1886–89 and then in Dresden for a year.
He is best known for three albums of national romantic piano pieces entitled Frösöblomster I, II and III, which includes the often performed Vid Frösö kyrka and Sommarsång. The sets, which were composed over a period of 18 years and brought together afterwards as a collection have gained a reputation of representing a quintessential "Swedishness" in the romantic, nationalistic vein of their time. The most famous of the pieces, Sommarsång recalls the warm, calm, harmonious and bright pre-summer evenings where the sun in the north almost never goes down; they were the great breakthrough for Wilhelm. Sommarsång is still known to most Swedes, even to people generally uninterested in music: the majority of young piano students in the Nordic countries have been taught this piece. His songs for vocal ensemble are also still regularly performed, and are part of the core repertoire of Swedish choirs.
His other works include the five symphonies - among them are no.2 Sunnanfärd and no.3 Same-Ätnam generally considered the best - as well as the operas Ran, Arnljot, Domedagsprofeterna and Adils och Elisiv. His command of the larger forms, in both architecture and instrumentation, is disputed.
He was stage manager at the Stockholm Opera from 1908-10. The opera Arnljot has nevertheless become something of a symbol for the province of Jämtland and is regularly performed there, as a "musical drama", at Arnljotlägden on Frösön, close to Peterson-Berger's former home, Sommarhagen. Domedagsprofeterna is the antithesis of Arnljot – a light festive musical comedy set in 17th century Uppsala, while the saga Adils och Elisiv where Swedish ‘talsång’ attained its purest expression is a work extolling Peterson-Berger's belief in humanism and the goodness of man.
He also wrote about eighty songs, many of which set poems by Erik Axel Karlfeldt, for example Aspåkerspolska.

Work list (partial)

Orchestral

As well as being a composer, Peterson-Berger was also a respected though very controversial music critic for the Stockholm newspaper Dagens Nyheter from 1896-1930. He was conservative and fought the increasing influence of modernism in music, especially from Arnold Schoenberg and his followers. His progress was hindered by many enemies whom he made through his writings; he attacked showy virtuosity and dry academicism with satire but also with strict conscientiousness. For either composers or performers who did not conform to his taste, he was not above grave personal insults.

Other writings include ‘Svensk musikkultur’ which includes clearsighted and satirical attacks on the prevailing musical establishment, ‘Richard Wagner som kulturföreteelse’ as well as translations of Tristan und Isolde, and Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy and Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

The man

One acquaintance later recalled his surprise when, on a journey by train from Stockholm to Östersund and Frösön, the big man and notorious critic suddenly burst into tears and felt soft like a child as the bucolic landscape of his beloved Jämtland began to unfold outside the window. Even this writer, however, noted that even Peterson-Berger's threatening and miserable physical appearance and demeanour conformed to the stereotype of the dour Scandinavian.
His home on the island of Frösön near Östersund is open to the public in the summer months and is much as the composer left it. The downstairs music hall has his grand piano, a work room and library, while upstairs the bedrooms may be viewed. He lived alone there with a butler and his cats. There is also a small café where books and CDs are sold.