For 19 years, the Nordic Heritage Museum has hosted the Mostly Nordic Chamber Music Series and Smorgasbord. The series has become a mecca for people who want to explore their own musical heritage or to expand horizons to musical works less often played. It would be only a blip on the musical calendar if not for the caliber of the performances and the deft leadership of Lisa Bergman.
The format is five concerts on Sunday afternoons beginning after new year, one each devoted—mostly—to the music of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland respectively. Bergman brings in performers from those countries where possible, or those of that heritage. This weekend, it was the second concert of the season, devoted to Sweden, and titled “How Swede It Is.”
Romantic music of the late 19th century constituted the major part of the program, performed by violinist Karl-Ove Mannberg and pianist Bergman herself (she’s half Swedish.) From 1976-1983 Mannberg was concertmaster of the Seattle Symphony, but for many years since has continued a distinguished career as performer, conductor and teacher in Sweden, though he has also been a visiting professor at the University of Washington. A longtime associate of Bergman, this is not his first appearance on the Mostly Nordic Series.
The Swedish composers on the program included Wilhelm Stenhammar and Harald Fryklof. The former described his own work as “captivatingly lovely,” but it would be more accurate to describe the first of his Sentimental Romances performed Sunday as “sweetly pretty.” In A Major, it was gentle, attractive and shallow, though it received as captivating a performance as Mannberg and Bergman could make it. The second, livelier one, in F Minor, was more adventurous, with more vigor and content, and one could imagine dancers swirling around to it.
Fryklof, on the other hand, composed a Sonata alla legenda, his magnum opus. Though he is forgotten now as a composer, it’s a work of substance in three movements, but it goes on far too long and the last movement particularly, a Scherzo, consists of short sections which seem like a necklace of unrelated beads.
The performers ranged further than Sweden however, opening the program with a famous Romance by Norway’s Johan Svendsen, a bittersweet piece in which one can sense that the course of true love never runs smooth.
Leaving the north countries, Mozart’s Sonata in A Major, K. 305 added 18th century sprightliness, and the concert ended much further afield, with Histoire du Tango, by Astor Piazzolla.
A fine violinist, Mannberg interpreted the music of his country and its neighbor with innate understanding and his Mozart with elegance and charm, but he lacked the inner smoldering sensuality which goes with anything tango.
Equally fine as a pianist, Bergman had an easy rapport with Mannberg which made for excellent collaboration and synchronization throughout. However, in the Mozart where the violin part is often in lower registers, the piano tended to overwhelm the violin sound and I wished the piano lid had been lowered all the way down for this.
The three remaining concerts in this series are Norway April 27, Finland May 18, and Iceland June 1. And don’t forget the smorgasbord after. The food is to die for!
