Wilhelm Peterson-Berger - Orchestration of "The Maiden Under the Linden Tree" (1895)
Olof Wilhelm Peterson-Berger (27 February 1867, Ullånger — 3 December 1942, Östersund) 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.
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From 3 Songs, Op. 10 (1895)
Orchestrated by the composer
No. 1 Jungfrun under lind. (The Maiden under the Linden Trees) Andante
Berliner Symphoniker conducted by Stig Rybrant
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 (Flowers of Frösö), which includes the often-performed Vid Frösö kyrka (At Frösö Church) and Sommarsång (Summer Song). The sets, which were composed over a period of 18 years (1896 - 1914) 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 (Summer Song) 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 ("The Doomsday Prophets") and Adils och Elisiv ("Adils and Elisiv"). His command of the larger forms, in both architecture and instrumentation, is disputed.
As well as being a composer, Peterson-Berger was also a respected though very controversial music critic for the Stockholm newspaper Dagens Nyheter ("News of the Day") 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 (or who were young and insecure female musicians, to take one typical example), he was not above grave personal insults.
Other writings include ‘Svensk musikkultur’ (Swedish musical culture, 1911) which includes clearsighted and satirical attacks on the prevailing musical establishment, ‘Richard Wagner som kulturföreteelse’ (Richard Wagner as a cultural phenomenon, 1913) as well as translations of Tristan und Isolde (for a 1909 production in Stockholm), and Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy (1902) and Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1919).