Title & composer

Förändringar av en barnvisa op.37

Edvin Kallstenius

Composition year: 1949

Duration: 8 min

Comments about the work: Edvin Kallstenius (1881-1967) is grossly underrated as a composer, mostprobably because he did not fit into any particular category. With its free anddistinctive harmonies his music was considerably more radical than that ofother colleagues of his generation who, despite the powerful emotional contentof Kallstenius's music, often dismissed him as a speculative contrapuntist. Atthe same time he steadfastly upheld traditional forms and therefore did not feelat home with the modernist composers of the twenties either. It was not until the last twenty years of his long life that he adopted a moremodern formal language, finally developing his own extremely individual varietyof twelve-tone technique. In Förändringar av en barnvisa (A nursery rhyme'smetamorphoses), dedicated to the musicologist Ingmar Bengtsson, Kallsteniusdemonstrates his great technical skill in a ingenious game with allusions to themethods of Reger and Hindemith as well as Alban Berg, but with nolle of therococo elegance which characterizes Mozart's variations on the same tune. Text: Sten Hansson. From Phono Suecia nr 58 (1993) Translation: Cynthia Zetterqvist