Kurt Atterberg - Cello Concerto; Brahms Sextet (Truls Mørk; Kristjan Järvi)

Information

Composer: Kurt Atterberg

• Atterberg - Cello Concerto in C minor, Op. 21
• Brahms - String Sextet No. 2 in G major, Op. 36 (orch. Atterberg)

Truls Mørk, cello

Norrlands Opera Symphony Orchestra

Kristjan Järvi, conductor

Date: 2007

Label: BIS

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Review

Atterberg’s Cello Concerto had a long gestation but was eventually premiered in 1923 in Berlin. The soloist, Hans Bottermund, who was prominent in the city and who made some 78s, had decided to compose his own cadenza which, according to the astonished composer who was conducting, was “hideously long.” At the premiere the cadenza was again unveiled and the concerto relatively well received. Another German performance was given before Atterberg, doubtless exasperated by Bottermund’s liberties, bought a new cello – he was a good player – and played it himself at the Swedish premiere in March.

The Concerto is late Romantic in orientation with a hankering for a vein of melancholy nobility. It’s cast in three conventional sized and organised movements and cleaves close to expected channels of expression. There are some heroic brass calls in the opening andante cantabile section of the first movement and also a sense of powerful sweep from around 4:15. The ensuing attaca is skittish and takes the cello high – Bottermund and indeed Atterberg himself must have had (or desired to have) a fine sense of pitching at such Alpine heights. Contrasts of high-lying and guttural colours enliven the movement still further. The yearning lyricism of the central movement almost prefigures Finzi and especially touching is the way the solo cello muses and entwines around the horn melody – a reflection of Atterberg’s ear for decorative melodic strands but more importantly for gauging the emotional temper of passages. His forte is always tristesse. There are pensive Bachian moments in the finale, with a sideways look at the way in which Dvořák lightened orchestration and gave prominence to wind lines. The sense of introspection however is evident even here, as is the sense that for Atterberg directness and clarity of orchestration are paramount. Mørk needless to say suffers no intonational battles in his command of the work’s technical problems. His tone retains allure at all moments and he is adeptly supported by the fifty-strong orchestra whose small complement is in no sense a liability under Kristjan Järvi.

In 1939 Atterberg decided to publish his string orchestra arrangement of Brahms’s String Sextet in G major. In his interesting sleeve note Tomas Block suggests that the composer may have been spurred to arrange the sextet after having written a number of polemical essays. But he was in any case concurrently working on his opera Aladdin so maybe it cleansed the compositional palette as well. The arrangement conforms in its own way to everything we know of Atterberg – clear, clean, and responding most warmly to traditional models. Textures therefore remain light and avoid any sense of clogging.

As I’ve noted the playing is excellent and BIS’s recording very much up to its accustomed standard. The sextet arrangement sheds little real light on Atterberg beyond confirming much that we knew and the prize here is the concerto. It’s not a CD premiere because Werner Thomas-Mifune has recorded it for Koch-Schwann 315852, a disc I’ve not heard. For Atterberg admirers though this new disc packs a sizeable and sizeably sensitive punch.

— Jonathan Woolf

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Kurt Atterberg (12 December 1887 – 15 February 1974) was a Swedish composer and civil engineer. Born in Gothenburg, he studied composition at the Stockholm Conservatory and earned an engineering degree from the Royal Institute of Technology. Atterberg composed nine symphonies, six concertante works, five operas, and two ballets, all in a late Romantic style. In addition to composing, he also served also as a conductor, critic and administrator. After the end of World War II, Atterberg was accused of being a Nazi sympathizer, which resulted in him being isolated and ignored by younger composers and writers.

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Truls Mørk (born 25 April 1961) is a Norwegian cellist. Born in Bergen, he studied cello first with his father, and later with Frans Helmerson and Natalia Shakhovskaya. Mørk gained international acclaim in 1982 as the first Scandinavian finalist at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, winning 6th prize. His extensive career includes collaborations with prestigious orchestras, such as the Berliner Philharmoniker, Orchestre de Paris, and New York Philharmonic, under esteemed conductors, such as Simon Rattle and Gustavo Dudamel. A champion of contemporary music, Mørk has premiered over 30 works.

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Kristjan Järvi (born 13 June 1972) is an Estonian American conductor and composer. Born in Tallinn, Estonia, he is the younger son of the conductor Neeme Järvi and brother of conductor Paavo Järvi. Kristjan studied piano at the Manhattan School of Music and conducting at the University of Michigan. He was Chief Conductor and Music Director of NorrlandsOperan (2000–2004), the Tonkünstler Orchestra (2004–2009), and the MDR (Leipzig Radio) Symphony Orchestra (2012–2018). As a recording artist Järvi has more than 60 albums to his credit. He is also active as a composer and has composed many works in modern style.

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