MSO Live: Stenhammars serenad

Henri Tomasi was born in Marseilles in 1901. In his teenage years he worked as a pianist accompanying silent films before making his breakthrough as a composer and conductor in the latter half of the 1920s. His Concerto For Trombone And Orchestra was composed in 1956, the year before he gave up conducting to concentrate on composition. The first movement fluctuates in atmosphere and temperament until finally blooming into a whirling waltz. In the second movement, Tomasi creates a distinct urban atmosphere of disreputable docklands, blues clubs and drizzly back alleys. That same urban vibe continues into the third movement with its infectious pulse, optimism and cosmopolitan atmosphere.

2020 marks the 150th anniversary of Wilhelm Stenhammar’s birth. In the role of composer, musician and conductor, he is considered to be one of the great architects of Swedish music during the early decades of the twentieth century. Having begun composing in childhood, Stenhammar went on to become a renowned pianist, constantly toured both as a soloist and in ensembles. Although born in Stockholm he has come to be strongly associated with Gothenburg, where he worked from 1907 onwards as the artistic director and chief conductor of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra. It was during this period that he composed his Serenade in F Major, originally written between 1911 and 1913 and then revised in 1919. This is an extremely popular orchestral work in five movements, with a sense of Nordic languor that is especially apparent in the second and fourth movements, Canzonetta and Notturno. The middle movement is a stirring scherzo that evokes both a yacht cutting through the waters of the archipelago and goats gambolling in a summer meadow.