Four of the six symphonies by the Swedish composer Gösta Nystroem (1890-1966) have already been released by BIS in performances by Malmö Symphony Orchestra. The...

Four of the six symphonies by the Swedish composer Gösta Nystroem (1890-1966) have already been released by BIS in performances by Malmö Symphony Orchestra. The two discs were variously described in American Record Guide as music 'of very high quality, beautifully judged, scored with an expert hand, with a spontaneous, yet controlled flow' and on the website MusicWeb International as 'important and highly individual works superbly performed and recorded'. The cycle is completed with the present CD, on which the German conductor Christoph König makes his first appearance on BIS. The opening work on the disc is Nystroem's first symphony, Sinfonia breve, which he composed just before his return to Sweden after having spent the 1920's in Paris. With a duration of close to 20 minutes, the work is in one movement with a symmetrical arc-shape, features which also characterize the third, and perhaps best-known of Nystroem's symphonies, Sinfonia del mare. Dedicated to 'all the sailors upon the seven seas' the latter work expresses Nystroem's lifelong fascination with the sea and the coast. This fascination he shared with the Swedish poet Ebba Lindqvist, whose poem Det Enda ('The One Thing') he incorporated in the central section of the symphony. The soloist on the present recording is the internationally acclaimed mezzo-soprano Malena Ernman.