In so far as Gosta Nystroem is known outside Sweden, it is for his Sinfonia del mare which enjoyed quite a vogue in the early 1950s: his inspiration was fuelled by a lifelong love of the sea. The present disc offers three works: two from his years in Paris and the last, his Sinfonia seria from the final decade of his life. After studies in Stockholm (1914–15) he went to Copenhagen (1915–19) and Paris, where he remained throughout the 1920s, returning to Sweden in 1932, where he settled in Gothenburg and was active not only as a composer but for a time as a critic (1932–47). He was an accomplished painter (a great admirer of the Cubists and Matisse) and only settled decisively on a musical career in the early 1920s, when he became a pupil of d'lndy and Sabaneiev.
Nystroem's outlook is predominantly Gallic and Honegger is a strong influence, noticeably in the fine Sinfonia concertante for cello and orchestra and in the Sinfonia espressiva. During his years in Copenhagen he got to know the polar explorer Roald Amundsen and Knut Rasmussen (an expert on Greenland), and in the summer of 1917 he went on a Norwegian seal-hunting ship to Spitsbergen and the east coast of Greenland. The Swedish painter, Gosta Adrian-Nilsson had tried to interest Nystroem in the idea of two ballets, one set in the south Pacific and the other based on an Arctic theme. Some of the material for the tone-poem, Ishavet (''The Arctic Ocean''), was intended for the latter. It is atmospheric but essentially static and its invention is not imaginative enough to leave a strong impression.
The Sinfonia breve, also from his Paris years, was available for a brief period on a Caprice LP (where it kept company above its station with Vagn Holmboe's powerful Tenth Symphony). Like so much of Nystroem's music, it is defident in thematic vitality, its ideas poor and lacking real personality. Even his best music, among which I would include the Sinfonia concertante and the Sinfonia espressiva, seems occasionally to lose direction and the last part of the otherwise interesting Sinfonia seria sounds tired and manufactured. The shades of Honegger inhabit much of the opening but the invention is of more compelling quality than the Sinfonia breve. Others may (and in Sweden obviously do) respond more warmly to this music than T, and I can report that the performances are conscientious and well prepared, and the recording truthful.'