Gösta Nystroem

Gösta Nystroem (October 13, 1890 – August 9, 1966) was a Swedish composer.

Nystroem, originally "Nyström", was born in Silvberg, Sweden, a parish in the province of Dalarna, but spent most of his childhood in Österhaninge near Stockholm, at the time a small village but nowadays a suburban district. In his younger days, he was both a composer and a painter (one of the first Swedish Cubists), but when he was about thirty years old, he eventually decided to focus on music. He studied in Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Paris. Among his teachers in Paris were Vincent d'Indy and Leonid Sabaneyev. After living in France, mostly in Paris, for several years, he moved to Gothenburg at the Swedish west coast in the 1930’s, where he also worked as a music critic. In the 1950s he settled in Särö, a rather wealthy village about twenty kilometres south of Gothenburg, where he had a house that originally belonged to the family of his first wife, Gladys Heyman, to whom he got married 1921 in France. She died in 1946. In 1950 Nystroem got remarried to Helen Lyon, who, like Gladys Heyman, came from an upper class Gothenburg family. It should be said that Nystroem himself was never a rich man, even though his old-fashioned gentleman style fit very well into the society life.

In Sweden, Nystroem was regarded a modernist in the 1930’s, but in today’s view, his music is moderately modernistic. It is influenced by the French music of the time of his studies, but still has a Nordic, romantic tone, and is most often melancholy or upset. As a person and artist Nystroem was dependent on the sea and preferred to live close to it.

Among Nystroem’s most appreciated works are his romances. The most widely known collections are "Sånger vid havet" ("Songs by the sea", with orchestra or piano, 1942), "På reveln" ("At the reef", with piano, 1948) and "Själ och landsk

Nystroem composed six symphonies. Among these, "Sinfonia espressiva" (1935-37) and "Sinfonia del mare" (1947-48) are considered to be the best. "Sinfonia espressiva" grows from a slow first movement scored for strings and timpani. In the second and third movements, groups of wind instruments and percussion are added, and only the finale is scored for full orchestra. The sea symphony, "Sinfonia del mare", is written in one continuous movement, picturing different moods inspired by the sea. It is Nystroem’s most popular work and might be said to have overshadowed other important works of his output. In the middle of the symphony there is a part where a soprano sings a setting of Lindqvist’s poem "Det enda" ("The one") about a person who has fled from the sea, "as one flees from the beloved", but soon will return there to "sit by the sea and know it's the one on earth". Nystroem’s other symphonies, seldom played, are "Sinfonia breve" (1929-31), "Symphony No. 4" (1952, originally entitled "Sinfonia shakespeariana"), "Sinfonia seria" (1963), and "Sinfonia tramontana" (1965).

Other works by Nystroem are the tone poem "La mer arctique" (1924-25), two concertos for string orchestra (No. 1 written in 1930; No. 2 in 1955), a "Sinfonia concertante" for cello and orchestra (1944), and a "Partita" for flute, string orchestra and harp (1953), as well as concertos for violin (1954/57), viola ("Hommage à la France", 1940), and piano ("Concerto ricercante", 1959). He also wrote an opera, "Herr Arnes penningar" (1958), based on a novel by Selma Lagerlöf.