Symphonies 2 & 5

Abstract

Atterberg's self-understanding as a composer is re¬flected already in his early oeuvre. During the first decade of his valid compositional productivity, be¬tween 1908 and 1918, he wrote not only two string quartets and a violin concerto but also no fewer than four symphonies. Despite his fundamentally tradi¬tional orientation, he did not succumb to the tempta¬tion of merely appropriating forms and methods as empty frameworks but reflected on then in his work. This fact is demonstrated very persuasively by the his-tory of composition of the Symphony No. 2 in F major op. 6. Atterberg began the sketd in the autumn of 1911. The first movement, no in l« brass passages and pressing on ahead, art move ment combining the slow movement anscherzo were the first two movements to be completby him The symphony was performed for the first 13 in this version in Gbteborg in December 12, 191 with the composer as the conductor. Atterberg's contemporaries may haveriticized the symphony as incomplete, but he himsebgarded it as an entirely finished work in this formFhe sec ond movement of my new Symphony >. 2 ex panded beyond its own bounds into sued monu mental thing that I neither regarded a finaof what ever design as necessary nor thought tf such a movement was possible.« The second mcment of almost a quarter of an hour in length dc indeed have a musical course of its entirely own vght with the regular alternation of the Adagio J Presto parts. The first part is borne by an expans: melody line. After a first densification it is foiled by a dancy, stamping scherzo. The briefly formted pair of passages following next in sequence fctions as the development section. A passage strikjly intro¬duced by the trumpet forms the conclusioihere the orchestra experiences a tonal flourishing, i a very Mahlerian »resurrection« is produced by tmodula tion to major. (For their part, however, thejurations in the strings in the following horn passe with a continuation marked by pathos, recall /agner s Tannhauser Overture.) Only after several ampts did Atterberg finally find a continuation fitting this pre¬mature finale situation with a last movent again modulating to minor. His choice once tfin of a more dramatic character for this movemt also al lowed him finer shadings in harmony and oression.(Later Atterbeg referred to a remark by Ture Rang-strom, accoraSg to which a major key would repre¬sent »only a \iece of poor minor.«) The premiere of the symphony in its final three-movement form took place under (arl Corbach in Sondershausen on July 27, 1913. Even thoua this situation was not very satisfactory for Atterberg,the symphony was performed by some of the leadin conductors of those years, including Arthur Nikisc, Richard Strauss, and Siegmund von Hausegger. Citical resonance was extremely positive owing to theunquestioned originality of Atterberg's tonal idiom ad consolidated his reputation above all in German-spaking Europe. A review printed in the Hamburger femdenblatt on November 9, 1915, is typical of theopinions pronounced: »From it the inner voices of Naue speak, and the colors of its creator's Nordic homeshine forth. And the history and the sa¬gas and sons of a people live in Atterberg. He him¬self is perhap not conscious of all of this, to the ad¬vantage of h music, which thus nowhere bears the stamp of thedeliberate, intentional, or strained, but has its own oaracter.« The Syirohony No. 5 in D minor op. 20 »Sinfonia finebre« has a comparatively long his¬tory of comiosition. The first sketches go back to 1917, but Aerberg did not complete it until July 22, 1922, after .ne last intensive work phase. Atterberg later wrote i his autobiographical notes of the long compositionc process, which was bound up with doubts abouhis own talent, »After I had availed my¬self in my Synphonies Nos. 1 to 4 of that expression, namely expressionism, that I felt and lived, the Fifth >Funebre< wis like a sort of funeral song for my hopes to rom life >en gros et en detail.< But apart from this, th composition of my >Fifth< brought me such satisfaction tha11 was certain that I could handle the >job<: namely ttrough the concentration of form and the more effective design of the instrumentation.« All the time and energy that Atterberg spent per¬fecting the design of the symphony ond elaborating the score nonetheless ended up being richly re¬warded. After he himself conducted the premiere in Berlin at the beginn ng of 1923, the symphony was presented in Hamburg and Leipzig (here under Wilhelm Furtwdngler) during the following days. It was not heard in Stockholm until February 21. The work celebrated a considerable public success, and after the Leipzig performance Atterberg established contact with representatives of the Breitkopf & Hdrtel publishing company which accepted three sympho¬nies by him for its catalogue and thus encouraged the further dissemination of his works, at least into the 1940s. A review printed in the Allgemeine Musik-Zeitung on January 12, 1923, attests to the favorable reception given by the composer's contemporaries to the Symphony No. 5, a work of a rather gloomy mood as far as its e>pression is concerned: »This mu¬sic is, so to speak, enveloped in a dark-violet cloak over which black veils wave. Painful, yearning la¬ments, anxious, half-resigned hoping, and in the last movement cramped, ironic merriment, tragic passion, and emotional brokemess are the emotional elements with which this music is imbued. [...] This music has substance and charccter; it sounds and it forces the listener into its atmospheric realm.*