By Chandos Records Symphony No. 4 ‘Sinfonia piccola’ In a friendly competition with his Swedish colleague Natanael Berg (1879 – 1957), Atterberg composed his Fourth Symphony in 1918. They had decided that each should write a piece lasting no longer than twenty minutes (a stipulation which neither of them managed to follow), and that a bass tuba should be heard in ‘splendid isolation’ somewhere in the piece. Atterberg called his work Sinfonia piccola (in G minor, Op. 14), and Berg his Pezzo sinfonico (also, coincidentally, his Fourth Symphony). Atterberg’s symphony, full of humour and wit, has proven popular and received many performances; its language is open and simple, almost neoclassical. It also includes numerous quotations from Swedish folk music. In his childhood home in Gothenburg, Atterberg had found a publication from 1875 containing some 200 Swedish folk dances, and from this book he borrowed many melodies for his Third Symphony (Västkustbilder [Pictures from the Western Coast], in D major, Op. 10; 1914 – 16) as well as his Fourth, and for the opera Härvard Harpolekare (Härvard the Harp Player), Op. 12 (1916 – 18). To this volume can also be traced much of his love for tunes in the minor mode. Significantly, he never used the melodies as they had been written down, but treated them freely, changing metre and tempi, omitting some parts and combining others. The orchestration is attractive and charming. Sinfonia piccola was first performed in Stockholm in March 1919. https://youtube/watch?v=RBXJGBL2vJc
Posted on: Fri, 09 Jan 2015 17:20:41 +0000
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