 Franz Berwald ca 1840 - painter unknown Franz Adolf Berwald (born in Stockholm on July 23, 1796 and died there on April 3, 1868) was a Swedish Romantic composer who was generally ignored during his lifetime and had to make his living as an orthopedic surgeon and, later, as the manager of a saw mill and glass factory. He is now considered the finest Swedish composer of the 19th century, indeed probably the finest Swedish composer of any century. Image File history File links Franz_Berwald_Painting. ...
Image File history File links Franz_Berwald_Painting. ...
Stockholm panorama from the City Hall is the capital of Sweden, located on the south east coast of Sweden. ...
July 23 is the 204th day (205th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 161 days remaining. ...
1796 was a leap year starting on Friday. ...
April 3 is the 93rd day of the year (94th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 272 days remaining. ...
1868 (MDCCCLXVIII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar or a leap year starting on Friday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar. ...
The era of Romantic music is defined as the period of European classical music that runs roughly from the early 1800s to the first decade of the 20th century, as well as music written according to the norms and styles of that period. ...
A composer is a person who writes music. ...
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Orthopedic corset Orthopaedic surgery or orthopaedics is the branch of surgery concerned with acute, chronic, traumatic, and recurrent injuries and other disorders of the musculoskeletal system, its muscular and bone parts. ...
Life and works
Berwald came from a family with four generations of musicians; his father, a violinist in the Royal Opera Orchestra, taught young Berwald the violin from an early age. He soon appeared in concerts. In 1811, Karl XIII (brother of Gustavus III) came to power and reinstated the Royal Chapel; the following year Berwald started working there, as well as playing the violin in the court orchestra and the opera, receiving lessons from Edouard Dupuy. He also started composing. The summers were off-season for the orchestra, and Berwald travelled around Scandinavia, Finland and Russia. Of his works from that time, a Septet and a Serenade he still considered worthwhile music in his later years. A violinist is an instrumentalist who plays the violin. ...
Charles XIII, Karl XIII, or Carl II, (1748-1818), king of Sweden and Norway, the second son of king Adolf Frederick of Sweden, and Louisa Ulrica of Prussia, sister of Frederick the Great, was born at Stockholm on October 7, 1748. ...
Gustav III (13 January 1746 (O.S.) (24 January 1746 (N.S.))–March 29, 1792) was King of Sweden from 1771 until his death. ...
Scandinavia is a region in Northern Europe named after the Scandinavian Peninsula. ...
In 1818 Berwald started publishing the Musikalsk journal, later renamed Journal de musique, a periodical with easy piano pieces and songs by various composers as well as some of his own original work. In 1821, his Violin Concerto in C# minor was premiered by his brother August. It was not well received. Some people in the audience even burst out laughing during the slow movement.
His family got into dire economic circumstances after the death of his father in 1825. Berwald tried to get several scholarships, but only got one from the King, which enabled him to study in Berlin, where he worked hard on operas despite not having any chance to put them on the stage. To make a living, Berwald started an orthopedic and physiotherapy clinic in Berlin in 1835, which turned out to be profitable. Some of the orthopedic devices he invented were still in use well decades after his death. Berlin is the capital city and a state of Germany. ...
Orthopedic surgery or orthopedics (BE: orthopaedics) is the branch of surgery concerned with acute, chronic, traumatic and recurrent injuries and other disorders of the locomotor system, its musclular and bone parts. ...
Physical therapy can help restore lost functionality in many people. ...
But he stopped composing during his time in Berlin, resuming only in 1841 with a move to Vienna and marriage to Mathilde Scherer. In 1842 a concert of his tone poems at the Redoutensaal at the Hofburg Imperial Palace received rave reviews, and over the course of the next three years Berwald wrote four Symphonies. Vienna (German: Wien ; Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian: BeÄ, Czech: VÃdeň, Hungarian: Bécs, Romanian: Viena, Romani: Bech or Vidnya, Russian: Вена, Slovak: Viedeň, Slovenian: Dunaj) is the capital of Austria, and also one of the nine States of Austria. ...
Hofburg Neue Burg section, seen from Heldenplatz. ...
The Symphony No. 1 in G minor, "Sérieuse", was the only one of Berwald's four symphonies that was performed in his lifetime. In 1843, it was premiered in Stockholm with his cousin Johan Frederik conducting the Royal Opera House Orchestra. At that same concert, his operetta Jag går i kloster was also performed, but its success is credited to one of the roles having been sung by Jenny Lind. Jenny Lind in La Sonnambula. ...
Berwald's music didn't get much recognition in Sweden during his lifetime, even drawing hostile newspaper reviews, but fared a little better in Germany and Austria. The Mozarteum Salzburg made him an honorary member in 1847. In Salzburg, the Universität Mozarteum Salzburg, the University of Music and Dramatic Arts Mozarteum Salzburg honors the Austrian citys most famous son, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. ...
When Berwald got back to Sweden in 1849, he managed a glass works at Sandö in Ångermanland owned by Ludvig Petré, an amateur violinist. During that time Berwald focused his attention on producing chamber music. (help· info), is a historical province or landskap in the north of Sweden. ...
One of his few operas to be staged in his lifetime, Estrella de Soria, was heartily applauded at its premiere at the Royal Theater in April 1862, and was given four more performances in the same month. Following this success, he wrote Drottningen av Golconda, which would have been premiered in 1864, but was not, due to a change of directorship at the Royal Opera. Image File history File links Franz_Berwald_Photo. ...
Image File history File links Franz_Berwald_Photo. ...
In 1866, Berwald received the Order of the Polar Star, in recognition of his musical achievements. The following year, the Stockholm Conservatoire finally appointed Berwald professor of composition, having rejected his applications for this post several times before. At around that time he was also given many important commissions, but he would not live to fulfill them all. The Order of the Polar Star (Swedish Nordstjärneorden) is a Swedish Royal order of chivalry created by King Frederick I of Sweden on 23 February 1748, together with the Order of the Sword and the Order of the Seraphim. ...
Composition deals with the bits and pieces that make up things. ...
Berwald died in Stockholm in 1868 of pneumonia and was interred there in the Norra begravningsplatsen. The second movement of the Symphony No. 1 in G minor was played at his funeral. Pneumonia is an illness of the lungs and respiratory system in which the microscopic, alveoli (air-filled sacs) responsible for absorbing oxygen from the atmosphere become inflamed and flooded with fluid. ...
Norra begravningsplatsen Norra begravningsplatsen, translated as the Northern Burial Place but often referred to as the Northern Cemetery, is a major cemetery of Stockholm, Sweden in the area of the city known as Solna. ...
Ten years after Berwald's death, his Symphony No. 4 in E-flat major, "Naïve", was premiered in 1878, with the originally planned Paris 1848 premiere having been cancelled because of the political unrest of that time. But this gap betwen composition and first performance was relatively short compared to what befell the Symphony No. 2 in D major, "Capriceuse" and Symphony No. 3 in C major, "Singulière". Those two pieces were not premiered until 1914 and 1905 respectively.
Critical assessment Eduard Hanslick, writing in his 1869 book Geschichte des Concertwesens in Wien, opined of Berwald, "a man stimulating, witty, prone to bizarrerie, [that] as a composer lacked creative power and fantasy". On the other hand, composers Ludvig Norman, Tor Aulin and Wilhelm Stenhammar worked hard to promote Berwald's music, although despite these musicians' efforts it took a while before Berwald was recognized as Sweden's "most original and modern composer" (to quote the words of composer-critic Wilhelm Peterson-Berger, writing in Dagens nyheter). This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...
Tor Aulin (1866-1914) was a Swedish composer. ...
Carl Wilhelm Eugen Stenhammar (February 7, 1871 - November 20, 1927) was a Swedish composer, pianist and conductor. ...
Wilhelm Peterson-Berger Olof Wilhelm Peterson-Berger (born 27 February 1867 in Ullånger, Ångermanland, Sweden, died 3 December 1942 in Östersund, Sweden) was a Swedish composer. ...
In 1911, Carl Nielsen wrote of Berwald, "Neither the media, money nor power can damage or benefit good Art. It will always find some simple, decent artists who forge ahead and produce and stand up for their works. In Sweden, you have the finest example of this: Berwald." More recently, British musicologist Robert Layton wrote (1959) what remains the sole English-language biography of Berwald, as well as discussing Berwald's music in considerable detail elsewhere. Carl Nielsen Carl August Nielsen (June 9, 1865, Sortelung – October 3, 1931, Copenhagen) was a conductor, violinist, and the most internationally known composer from Denmark. ...
References - Robert Layton, editor, A Guide To The Symphony, Chapter 13, "The Symphony in Scandinavia", written by Robert Layton.
External link - Berwald Bibliography and Discography
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