The Swedish composer Bo Linde was a
student of Lars Erik Larsson in Stockholm.
His energies were poured into the production
of music for orchestra, chamber ensemble
and voice. He was no adherent of serial
technique or dodecaphony.
Linde is as much a
songster as Walton. Indeed this Violin
Concerto at many points echoes with
the aspirational romance and the jagged
drama of the Walton concerto. This is
a work in which the soloist is in incessant
action - never marking time, always
purposefully pressing forward. Perhaps
that is a weakness of the work; namely
that there is insufficient variation
between its two big movements although
the lovely cradle-rocking lento that
ends the work redeems all. There are
no discords here and plenty of evidence
of the composer’s proud claim that ‘I
write in very beautiful triads’. I associate
neo-classicism, which the notes claim
for Linde, with terse desiccation. There
is none of that here. Textures are clean
but this is an overwhelmingly romantic
work with more echoes of the violin
concertos of Prokofiev, Miaskovsky and
Barber than of Stravinsky. A lovely
work and one which has captivated me
since I taped Karl Ove-Mannberg’s performance
with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra
conducted by Stig Westerberg in July
1977.
The Cello Concerto
was written for Guido Vecchi who
also recorded the Frederick Jacobi concerto
- a very different work. Vecchi, who
was principal cellist of the Gothenburg
Symphony Orchestra had his performance
of the Nystroem Sinfonia Concertante
issued in a Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra
centenary box by Bis. Kliegel gives
a gutsy performance recalling the sort
of soulful tone we get from Arto Noras
and while this work is more edgy and
angular than the Violin Concerto Kliegel
finds and expounds the work’s lyric
strata. The surrounding punctuation
is stormy and gritty. This time there
is plenty of contrast across the three
movements. This is well illustrated
by the mood-change between the ethereal
end of the first movement and the convulsive
Portsmouth Point activity of
the start of the central movement. The
finale manages to be both lyrically
saturated and mistily valedictory.
The Linde scene is
set rather well by Ulf Jönsson
although I wish he could have volunteered
more dates and a longer list of works.
Also I don’t for one moment buy the
suggestion that Linde was a neo-classicist.
A cracking disc with
the technical side splendidly managed
and two romantic-dramatic concertos
full of explosive action and searing
and sunny lyricism. Not to be missed.
Rob Barnett
Karen Gomyo (violin) 
