Rangström, Ture

Ture Rangström – Havet sjunger (Song of the Sea)

(b. Stockholm, 30 November 1884 – d. Stockholm, 11 May 1947)

Symphonic poem for large orchestra
(1913)

Preface
Ture Rangström was born in Stockholm, Sweden on 30 November 1884. A later bloomer than other composers, Rangström did not show serious interest in music until nearly seventeen. Instead, his first love was poetry. The composer later claimed, “Perhaps my interest in music was actually awakened by poetry, since it was the word, the ardent word of the poet, that first aroused my relentless desire to compose.”1

Appropriately, once his interest in music was aroused, Rangström began to compose songs for voice and piano, setting the poetry he loved. Yet his passion outstripped his training: Rangström remained a virtually self-taught composer all his life. His most substantial musical education came from lessons with organist, scholar, and pedagogue Johan Lindegren (1842-1908) during the winter of 1903-4, which gave him “invaluable inspiration in the art of shaping a melody,” and lessons with German composer Hans Pfitzner (1869-1949) in Berlin from 1905-6. While there, he also began singing lessons with Julius Hey (1832-1909), a singer and vocal coach who had prepared many of the singers for the first complete Ring cycle at Bayreuth in 1876. Rangström followed Hey to Munich the next year to continue his vocal studies.

Returning to Sweden in 1907, Rangström supported himself by teaching singing and writing music criticism. Both activities provided steady work for years; Rangström only retired from teaching voice in 1922 and throughout his life wrote for a succession of Swedish newspapers: the Svenska dagbladet (1907–9), the Stockholms dagblad (1910–14, 1927–30), the Dagens nyheter (1920–21), and the Nya dagligt allehanda (1938–42). Expanding his journalistic and musical duties further, Rangström was press adviser at the Swedish Royal Opera from 1930-36 and among the founding members of the Society of Swedish Composers in 1918. …

Read full preface  > HERE