Harald Saeverud (1897-1992) is a difficult composer to characterise (Grove refers to the ‘atonal expressionism’ of his Cello Concerto, a serious libel on that slightly garrulous but appealing piece), but once you get on his wavelength you recognise a curious, personal and very attractive voice. This disc is ideally constituted to suggest how that language came about. It seems that Saeverud’s style matured slowly – his first three symphonies (all written in his twenties, before the Cello Concerto) were all withdrawn and subsequently revised.
The Cello Concerto itself was withdrawn and survives only in a manuscript full score marked up for wholesale revision, including re-scoring. This work was done by Robert Ronnes, who had worked with Saeverud on revising other scores of his, and the premiere was given by the artists on this disc in April 1999. The music has a neo- classical feel to it, with hints of Hindemith (thinned-out Hindemith: it is very sparely scored) and a good deal of bony, angular counterpoint. It is, as I say, an appealing piece (and a gift to virtuoso cellists), but in context its real importance is its glimpse of a personal melodic language being discovered. All three movements of the Concerto are in effect a ceaseless flow of melody, based on the fertile working of a number of brief motifs. It can indeed seem garrulous, but Saeverud’s pleasure in his new-found fluency is infectious.
The Symphony, written 27 years later in 1958, is almost pure melody with little counterpoint save in the slow movement. But now the melodic style and Saeverud’s motivic working are capable of far greater variety, from the long, lyrical lines of the hushed opening to a most engaging bucolic Scherzo, from the strikingly thoughtful slow movement to a conflict-ridden finale in which lyricism (a lyricism almost precisely half-way between Nielsen and Shostakovich) eventually triumphs. There is also (the work was commissioned for the centenary of the state of Minnesota) a slightly American flavour: you can imagine Roy Harris or Walter Piston thoroughly enjoying this symphony.
Not a masterpiece, but the work of a real individualist and a very likeable one. Both performances are first-class, and the recording (Saeverud’s sly xylophone trills in the Symphony’s Scherzo will give you quite a start) is as clean as a whistle.'