On Sunday, April 28, the Lviv Organ Hall will host a concert “Swedish Symphonic Music” featuring the Ukrainian premiere of Jon Fernström’s Symphony No. 6.
The fascinating and extraordinary, epic and unexplored music of Sweden will be performed by the Luhansk Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Ivan Ostapovych.
Jon Fernström’s sixth symphony is called “Amore studiorum”. He wrote it in the prime of his life, and his inspiration was the Helsingborg Orchestra. The symphony was composed in 1938, but was not performed for the first time until 1941.
Fernström thought of Symphony No. 6 as a “great drama” where the characters are musical themes, and everything that happens within the music is a kind of replicas, dialogues, outbursts of temperament, emotional disturbance, etc.
Fernström was a modernist, and his music has folkloric elements with subtle lyrical parts, a Nordic melancholic minor key-all reminiscent of modernist music inspired by folk traditions.
The sheet music of Fernström’s Symphony was sent to the Lviv Organ Hall from Sweden, especially for this performance. Listeners in Ukraine will hear it for the first time performed by the Luhansk Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Ivan Ostapovych.
Tickets for the concerts can be purchased at kontramarka.ua or at the Organ Hall box office (8 S. Bandera St.).
For information.
Jon Fernström (1897-1961), composer, violinist, conductor, artist and poet, was a mysterious personality with many talents. Born in China to a Swedish family, he came to Sweden at the age of ten and lived in Helsingborg and the university town of Lund. He was a famous violinist. He composed 12 symphonies, 8 string quartets, 2 violin concertos, and many other works.
He made his debut early on, performing one of Wieniawski’s violin concertos, and worked for many years as a conductor in symphony orchestras in both Helsingborg and Malmö. His most significant contribution to musical life was the founding of the Nordic Youth Orchestra in the 1950s, where young musicians gathered every summer. He was also an artist, painting portraits of musicians from his environment, and the skill of these portraits shows that he was not only an outstanding composer and conductor, but also a true multifaceted artist.