大象传媒

With the 大象传媒 National Orchestra of Wales conducted by B. Tommy Andersson. Live from Hoddinott Hall. Cardiff.

B. Tommy Andersson explains that 'G枚sta Nystroem wrote his music for the inauguration of the Municipal Theatre in Gothenburg, a beautiful building still in use today. The Theatre was pulling out all the stops for a big production of the Tempest; Nystroem got the commission for the music in the Spring of 1934 - he even rented a small fisherman's cottage on a little island outside Gothenburg, so remote that it was only reached by a steamer twice a week, and only inhabited by elderly fishermen. He spent many nights by the seashore listening to the sounds of the storm. Nystroem studied art in Paris, but also he studied music with D'Indy, and met Stravinsky and Honegger - you can hear a lot of French influence in the harmony. The premiere was broadcast on the radio, which was a new-fangled thing in 1934: the old fishermen were listening to this very alien kind of art and sent Nystroem a postcard, which being illiterate, they got a young woman to write for them: "Mr Nystroem, you made a great storm. But wasn't it a bit short? Out here on the island, storms last about three days."'
Nystroem's depiction of the sea deserves to be widely heard - it is as evocative of the restless ocean as Debussy's La Mer, Bax's Tintagel, and Britten's 'Storm' from Peter Grimes.