Wilhelm Peterson-Berger (2/27/1867 - 12/03/1942)

In autumn 1895 Peterson-Berger moved to Stockholm and was employed on the leading Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter. Through his honest but often biting music reviews he became one of the most read journalists on Dagens Nyheter, arousing, however, much hostility and jealousy in the process. This in turn led to difficulties for him as a composer. He wanted to be known as a composer of large-scale works, out of his five symphonies only No. 3, Same Ätnam (‘Lappland’), and of his six larger music dramas only Arnljot, were accepted by the Swedish music establishment. Peterson-Berger had to remain in the shadow of his contemporaries Hugo Alfvén and Vilhelm Stenhammar.

It was above all through a number of smaller piano pieces, romanser (‘the Nordic equivalent of Lieder’) and choral pieces that Peterson-Berger came to be cherished by the Swedish public. Even fifty years after his death he can still be regarded as the most popular of all Swedish classical composers. His breakthrough came in 1896 with the publication of Eight Melodies for Piano, entitled Frösöblomster (‘Flowers of Frösö’). Certainly it was clear that Grieg’s Lyrical Pieces had served as a model and one can glimpse other, even older composers in the background, especially Schumann. But already Peterson-Berger’s style is clearly defined, his melodies expressive, his harmonies fresh, often idiosyncratic and his rhythms lithe.

There were to be no more Frösöblomster. Peterson-Berger died in Östersund Hospital at the beginning of December 1942. From the window next to his sickbed he could look out over the sound to far shore and see Frösö.