Hilding Rosenberg & Lille Bror Söderlundh

If I write a symphony I strive to collect all my musical and human experiences, and to give them a synthetic formulation. But as far as the solo concertos are concerned, don’t forget that I love the virtuoso elements (…) that the instruments get to speak, to show off, in playing to realize all their possibilities. These are the words of Hilding Rosenberg. Violin concerto No. 2 has an ample measure of these elements.

Lille Bror Söderlundh’s name is chiefly associated with some very popular settings of poems by Swedish poet Nils Ferlin. But he also composed music for the concert hall, and this music too has a more or less pronounced affinity with folk music. “Without the folk tones and songs that I heard in my home as child I would not have become a composer, they are the source from which I draw when I write music”. In these words Lille Bror Söderlundh himself described his musical origins.

The soloists in the violin concertos are: Leon Spierer (Rosenberg’s violin concerto No.2,) and Leo Berlin (Söderlundhs violin concerto). The Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and The Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra are playing directed by Arvid Jansons and Stig Westerberg.