To most readers, the name of Bo Nilsson is likely to be just that; he was one of a succession of composers who were feted briefly by the avant-gardists in the 1950s, but who after varying periods of time got fed up with the kant and regime at Darmstadt and left to pursue more individual paths. Nilsson is a little unusual in that it only took four years (a decade ahead of Penderecki et al, but three years after Henze) for the disillusion to set in. He arrived in 1957 with the rapturously received Frequenzen (“Frequencies”), a brief, deliciously scored tone-poem for flutes, percussion, guitar and double-bass; his farewell came in the long, loud ‘belch’ (signifying “I’ve had enough. Goodbye!”, somewhat shortened in the version here) which closes the chamber-orchestral Drei Szenen (1960-1).
Like Frequenzen, and sharing its brevity of scale, Quantitaten for piano, the cantata Stunde eines Blocks and the wind trio Zwanzig Gruppen (all 1958) represent Nilsson’s most experimental period. The rest of the first disc of this thoroughly engrossing three-CD set is devoted to later pieces of similar length but less radical language. Comparing the 1968 piano piece Rendez-vous with Quantitaten shows how Nilsson’s way of writing for the instrument remained unaltered despite the change of style, a trait evident in the wind quartet Deja vu (1967; part of a series) when set against the aleatoric Zwanzig Gruppen.
Nilsson remained provocative, not least in his use of the diatonic – anathema to the ‘progressives’ of the time – as in Revue (1967), or the delightful chamber cantata Floten aus der Einsamkeit (1976). Perhaps inevitably, his language approached the more serious branches of ‘popular’ music, a development covered on the third disc. Nilsson had been a jazz pianist in his youth, as one can hear from the 1969 film extracts, “Invitation to Love” and “Mysteries of Love”. The fulsome notes point out the “oriental tonal language” and “improvisational element” of the overlong choral-and-orchestral diptych Fatumeh-Madonna (1973), but it was jazz that came mostly to my mind. The beautiful not-quite-title track, A Spirit’s Whisper in Swedenborg’s Gazebo (1970, revised 1997), with its rapt, soaring lines for the soprano, is somehow less compelling than other pieces, such as the invigorating La Bran (1975).
I have left the second disc until last because it contains the best music. Indeed, the tripartite cantata Brief an Gosta Oswald (1958-9) is arguably Nilsson’s masterpiece. His still post-Webernist style had already opened out into something more expansive (perhaps due to his having breathed wholesome Nordic air, not just the “old miasmal mists” of Vienna and Darmstadt), while its ravishing orchestration placed it – and Drei Szenen – in a different league to other leading-edge scores of the time. Something for everyone, then, in this set, selected by the composer from a variety of new and archival recordings, though I doubt that many listeners will respond equally well to every piece. Through all the twists and turns of Nilsson’s oeuvre runs loud and clear a remarkable sensibility as an artist, and a finely attuned ear for sonority. Performance and sound quality, for all the diversity of source, are remarkably consistent and clear. A wonderful tribute to a fine composer.'