Most people, when thinking of mid-nineteenth-century Swedish composers, will readily think of Franz Berwald and then stop. There were of course others, such as Albert Rubenson (1826-1901). The four works given here cover the major part of his composing career (1847-71; his last decades were spent primarily in administration), the earliest being the sturdy Symphony in C major written in 1847 (and revised in 1851) when Rubenson was a pupil of Niels Gade in Leipzig. Gade’s legacy lies heavily on all the works here, but amid the resonances of him and, inevitably, Mendelssohn and Schumann are foreshadowings of others. Take the very opening of the short overture Drapa (‘Ode’) which sounds like Sibelius in lighter vein – except that the Finnish master had not been born when it was composed in 1859.
There is a distinctly Russian feel to the opening of the Symphonic Intermezzo in G minor (1860), despite its being based on Swedish folk music. It and the later Three Symphonic Pieces (1871) are sinfonietta-like concoctions, showing Rubenson at his best, with attractive melodism, expert orchestration and a fine structural control in medium-term length.
Roy Goodman makes a good case for this extremely obscure figure (and provides a note attesting his belief in the music). The Umea orchestra plays well for him, in works that must have been as unfamiliar to it as to the conductor.'