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drplaceboIt's Forgotten Masterpiece Friday!
After a couple weeks of last-minute posts, I'm getting an early start this time. One of my friends, Jonathan Spatola-Knoll (fellow violist, composer, and soccer fanatic), seems to have been been heavily involved a revival of Elfrida Andrée's music lately. Jonathan has conducted US premieres of at least two of her orchestral works, and his edition of Andrée's 1st string quartet was recently published. So I felt like I had to highlight Andrée sooner or later.
Elfrida Andrée (1841-1929) was a remarkable woman. Coming from a liberal political family, she achieved a whole series of firsts for women in Sweden: first to be appointed as a church organist, first to appointed director of a church choir, first to conduct a symphony orchestra, and first to manage a telegraph station. Her appointments as organist and telegraphist both required her to lobby the Swedish parliament to permit women to hold those jobs; after succeeding at that task, she went on to hold the prestigious position of Göteborg Cathedral organist for half a century.
Andrée's Concert Overture, composed in 1873, was her first highly successful orchestral work. Her first symphony had been a failure in its 1869 premiere, in large part because it was played badly; the composer wrote in her diary that the musicians had sabotaged the performance, with the first violins constantly one bar behind the rest of the orchestra. The Concert Overture, though, received its first performance almost a decade later, in 1878 when Andrée had developed more of a reputation for her chamber music. In Göteborg under the baton of the composer herself, in her first public concert as a orchestral conductor, it was a resounding success; there was a second public performance, also conducted by Andrée herself, in Berlin in 1888. But after that second performance, the piece languished in a library for more than a century before receiving its first performance of the modern era by the Walla Walla Symphony Orchestra in 1998. Further performances soon followed; this recording is by the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in 1999.
Like much Scandinavian music of the era, the Concert Overture shows significant influence from Mendelssohn. The piece showcases Andrée's considerable talent as a melodist, with a vibrant orchestration that recalls Mendelssohn but also, in a few passages (notably some 1st horn countermelodies) foreshadows the bold brass writing that would later become a hallmark of Scandinavian orchestral music.
After a couple weeks of last-minute posts, I'm getting an early start this time. One of my friends, Jonathan Spatola-Knoll (fellow violist, composer, and soccer fanatic), seems to have been been heavily involved a revival of Elfrida Andrée's music lately. Jonathan has conducted US premieres of at least two of her orchestral works, and his edition of Andrée's 1st string quartet was recently published. So I felt like I had to highlight Andrée sooner or later.
Elfrida Andrée (1841-1929) was a remarkable woman. Coming from a liberal political family, she achieved a whole series of firsts for women in Sweden: first to be appointed as a church organist, first to appointed director of a church choir, first to conduct a symphony orchestra, and first to manage a telegraph station. Her appointments as organist and telegraphist both required her to lobby the Swedish parliament to permit women to hold those jobs; after succeeding at that task, she went on to hold the prestigious position of Göteborg Cathedral organist for half a century.
Andrée's Concert Overture, composed in 1873, was her first highly successful orchestral work. Her first symphony had been a failure in its 1869 premiere, in large part because it was played badly; the composer wrote in her diary that the musicians had sabotaged the performance, with the first violins constantly one bar behind the rest of the orchestra. The Concert Overture, though, received its first performance almost a decade later, in 1878 when Andrée had developed more of a reputation for her chamber music. In Göteborg under the baton of the composer herself, in her first public concert as a orchestral conductor, it was a resounding success; there was a second public performance, also conducted by Andrée herself, in Berlin in 1888. But after that second performance, the piece languished in a library for more than a century before receiving its first performance of the modern era by the Walla Walla Symphony Orchestra in 1998. Further performances soon followed; this recording is by the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in 1999.
Like much Scandinavian music of the era, the Concert Overture shows significant influence from Mendelssohn. The piece showcases Andrée's considerable talent as a melodist, with a vibrant orchestration that recalls Mendelssohn but also, in a few passages (notably some 1st horn countermelodies) foreshadows the bold brass writing that would later become a hallmark of Scandinavian orchestral music.