The Swedish Violin Vol. 2

Included are also a couple of historically significant recordings with one of the most illustrious Swedish violinists of the 20th century, Charles Barkel (1896-1973). Hilding Rosenberg’s adventurous first violin concerto and Tor Aulin’s more famous Four Aquarelles for violin and piano, both effectively display his elegant technical virtuosity and musical intensity.

Another figure that is given more room in this instalment is the composer Emil Sjögren, whose five violin sonatas and several incidental pieces have been beloved features of the Swedish violin repertoire for a long time. A couple of these sonatas, and his Poéme for violin and piano, are here masterfully performed by Tobias Ringborg and Anders Kilström.

Swedish composers seem to have been smitten by the violin’s brilliant sound and endless technical possibilities quite early on. As early as during the baroque era, many violin concertos and solo pieces were written by several different composers. Of course, this can partly be explained by the “fiddle’s” continuously strong position within Swedish folk music, where it has been an inherent and popular feature ever since the instrument’s rise during the late renaissance and early baroque periods, until today. That said however, folk music in itself hasn’t always stood in such high regard, especially during the long periods when the state church’s strict doctrines about music’s inherent sinfulness reigned supreme.

The late romantic era and, especially, the 20th century was when the real explosion of Swedish art music happened, and there are hardly any of the established Swedish composers that didn’t write concertos, sonatas, tone poems, and diverse chamber music with the violin at the centre. A helpful factor in this was of course that Sweden both fostered, and attracted from abroad, a great number of eminent violinists over the years.

Participating on these recordings are, e.g., violinists Cecilia Zilliacus, Nils-Erik Sparf, Leo Berlin, and Jari Valo, conductors such as Lu Jia, Sergiu Comissiona, and Juha Kangas, as well as the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, and Norrköping Symphony Orchestra.