The Swedish composer Kurt Atterberg won a $10,000 prize in 1928 for his Symphony No. 6 from the U.S. Columbia label in a heavily publicized competition featuring top conductors such as Toscanini. After that, like Sibelius, he seemed to hit a creative wall, at least in regard to orchestral music, but instead of falling silent like Sibelius, he continued to write in what by the 1940s had become rather conservative Romantic idioms. Conductor Neeme Järvi and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra have recorded a complete Atterberg ...
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The Swedish composer Kurt Atterberg won a $10,000 prize in 1928 for his Symphony No. 6 from the U.S. Columbia label in a heavily publicized competition featuring top conductors such as Toscanini. After that, like Sibelius, he seemed to hit a creative wall, at least in regard to orchestral music, but instead of falling silent like Sibelius, he continued to write in what by the 1940s had become rather conservative Romantic idioms. Conductor Neeme Järvi and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra have recorded a complete Atterberg symphony cycle, concluding here and beautifully recorded by Chandos in the orchestra's own hall. The Symphony No. 7, Op. 45, bears the subtitle "Sinfonia romantica," given as a rebuke to critics who complained the work was old-fashioned. Based partly on themes from an earlier opera, Fanal, the three-movement work, cut down from four by the composer, has an attractively (small-r) romantic slow movement and indeed brings to mind Dvorák more than any other composer; the influence of...
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