Rangström, Ture

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

Symphony No. 2 in D minor, ‘Mitt Land’
(1918-19)

I. Sagan: Allegretto grave e fantastico p.3
II. Skogen, vågen, sommarnatten: Andante e scherzo all’ improvisazione p.73
III. Drommen: Allegro energico e maestoso p.123

Preface
Ture Rangström’s reputation as one of the leading Swedish composers of the early twentieth century rests largely on his numerous songs and his four symphonies. Though all the symphonies are significant within Rangström’s output, his second, which is titled Mitt Land (My Country) and was premiered on 29 November 1919, is the most overt expression of a musical national identity. It has thus been used rather like a calling card for both the composer and his country: Rangström programmed it for his trial concert with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra on 25 February 1921 and it also featured in his only performance as composer-conductor outwith the Nordic countries, in Dresden on 3 March 1940. By choosing to publish Mitt Land first of Rangström’s symphonies, Repertoire Explorer is following the same pattern. The symphony serves as a double introduction, to Rangström’s music and to Swedish music. It offers an encounter with the characteristic sound-world of Rangström’s orchestral music, but also with the ideas of nationhood that were current in early twentieth-century Sweden.

The symphony’s title appears to be an unambiguously patriotic statement that positions the work as a late flourishing of national romanticism: a heartfelt tribute to the composer’s native country after the manner of Smetana’s Ma Vlast. Even the movement titles, though, show that Rangström’s work was not intended to have the specificity of Smetana’s cycle: the first movement is called Sagan (The Saga), the second Skogen, vågen, sommarnatten (The forest, the wave, the summer night), and the third Drömmen (The Dream). Since the subjects of the saga and the dream are not specified, the outer movements leave a great deal to the imagination, and even the central movement refers to generic features of the Swedish landscape rather than to particular places. …

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