having listened to them some time ago but having little of new to say, I refrained from commenting but yes, No 1 is the best. I confess to have switched off the brain while No 3 was in progress.

That's ok, I had that while playing

I have had bad luck with the link on imslp, I couldn´t open the link to the score, so I can not judge too much about your playing of these pieces.
These are nice sounding character pieces in late romantic style, may be a bit comparable with the Songs Without Words by Mendelssohn. I like especially the second piece, it has a good and pregnant theme. The last song is a nice valse. Sounds all well played to me and there are some expressive moments.

Thanks !

Hello,

oh, when I saw Stenhammar, I wanted to listen. I have not ever heard Stenhammar and my teacher is talking about that all the time how much swedish it is. Thanks for the recording. Good job.

Thanks Bohumir. I don't think Stenhammar usually sounds especially 'Swedish', whatever that is. Maybe he does here,
but I think his big works are more influenced by Brahms and other mainstream composers. Actually Swedish native music does
not seem to have the distinctive sound of Norwegian and Finnish music. But there are some find Swedish composers I'd
like to explore - Atterberg, Larsson, Wiklund, etc.

OT about swedish music. Have heard Rosenberg - quite cool music, really! And Mankel. Also played two preludes by Mankel. But just the "nice" ones (mostly romantic and not so complicated. It's interresting how Mankel was writing. When I saw his sketches there's normal nice music. But then in the final versions he tried to do something special. Sometimes it's quite exciting.

I have not heard about Rosenberg and Mankel. Will check them out, thanks.

Hi Chris,

1: Molto tranquillo, semplice (2:22)
Very bell like tone. Your performance captures a pensive and yet hopeful character. There is such a beautiful approach to the left hand intervals. The balance between melody and harmony is superbly mastered.

2: Allegro (1:31)
Very beautiful approach to dynamics. There is a delicacy and yet a crispness and controlled buoyancy to the playing. I sense a relaxed technique and wonderful judgement in terms of the dynaimc level. Everything is in perspective in terms of timing, tone, dynamic level, interplay between hands. Thank you for a very enjoyable performance.

3: Polska (en miniature) (1:35)
Perhpas a pinch less subdued. The timing is excellent and the piece moves beautifully.

Kaila

Thank you Kaila Given that I did not spend much time on these, they came out well. They're very undemanding of course.

Thanks for bringing up Stenhammar, this is charming! The most often played piano piece by him here is the B minor fantasy, eg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keSoGQFHiqc (sorry if I break a rule by posting a link, if so I'll remove it). It is apparently not as hard as it sounds (I never tried it). I does sound a bit like Brahms.

I'm not so sure about Swedish music being overly cheerful. Some folk music is but it is really dance music and is supposed to cheer people up. There is quite a wide spectrum. Sure we don't have a "defining" composer (unless you count Grieg, since Sweden and Norway were one country at the time) but I'm not sure that is a bad thing.

Chris, make sure you include Peterson-Berger in your list to try. In particular his suite Frösöblomster (flowers from Frösö) is charming and not too difficult. The piece "Sommarsång" in it is performed constantly at student recitals (at least that used to be the case when I attended such). Any Swedish pianist will know it, it almost has the same status as Fur Elise. Me, I never played either of them but I was kind of rebellious in some respects.

A Swedish favourite of mine is the Chaconne (op by Gunnar de Frumerie, quite impressive but not too hard. A link where you can listen to some samples of his work is:

http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/w/1685 ... No-2-Op-65

Joachim

The opus number should by 8. Somehow when followed by a parenthesis it became a smiley.

Yes, isn't our bulletin board clever ! There's a whole list of combinations it automagically converts to smilies. If you want to disable that you can tick
'Disable BBcode' or 'Disable smilies' underneath your posting. Or set these in your profile.
I'll check out that Stenhammar phantasie, and see what I can find by Gunnar de Frumerie, whose name I have heard but never his music.
As for Peterson-Berger, our site founder Robert Stahlbard recorded his Frosomblomster some years ago, but I was not much take with the piece, finding it rather trite. I may want to try out Atterberg's Hostballade no.1, the only of his pieces I can find online. Atterberg was such a great composer, easily Sweden's best IMO. He should be right up there with Nielsen and Sibelius.

I think he only recorded sommarsång. There is a whole suite left to explore!

I've sampled other items of Peterson Berger's Frosoblomster such as I could find on Youtube. All very pretty and charming but IMO a bit bland and clumsy, and lacking in any distinctive personality. Despite Olaf Hojer's excellent advocacy, it does not make me want to explore this composer.

The Stenhammar Fantasie is a very good work, with a most beautiful theme (though it seems he milks it just a little too long). This might be worth the
effort, and indeed from listening to it I would think it is effective and impressive without being extremely difficult.

Gunner de Frumerie is a real find ! I love what I heard of his etudes on that site you mentioned. Must see what is available of his scores. Drat, and I have so much to do already

Thanks for these tips Joachim, it is nice to discuss some 'off the beaten track' repertoire here.