Swedish composer Sven-David Sandström died on Monday. He was 76.
Following studies of art history and musicology, Sandström studied composition with Ingvar Lidholm at the Royal College of Music, Stockholm. Other influential teachers were Györgi Ligeti and Per Nørgård.
Sandström first came to international attention in 1974, when the Concertgebouw Orchestra played his Through and Through. Whilst this confirmed his position as a leading Scandinavian modernist, his style softened in the decade that followed, becoming simpler and more directly neo-Romantic.
Sandström wrote more than 500 works in most genres, though he became particularly associated with choral music. Many of these works were consciously modelled on the works of old masters, particularly Bach. High Mass (1994) uses the same textual layout of Bach’s B Minor Mass, his Magnificat (2005) uses baroque instruments and his six motets use the same texts and choral disposition as those by Bach. He also wrote a Christmas Oratorio (2004), St. Matthew and St. John Passions and a large-scale Messiah (2009) after Handel. Significant works in other genres include his any stage collaborations with choreographer Per Jonsson, percussion works written over twenty years for the Kroumata Percussion Ensemble, Culminations for Orchestra (1976), Cello Concerto (1988), Piano Concerto (1990), the opera Jeppe: The Cruel Comedy (2001) and Six Pieces for Piano Trio and Orchestra (2010).
From 1985 to 1995 Sandström taught at Stockholm’s Royal College of Music and later at Indiana University, U.S. He was awarded the Christ Johnson Prize in 1974 for Through and Through, the Nordic Council Award in 1984 for his Requiem De ur alla minnen fallna, the Buxtehude Award in 1987, the Christ Johnson Major Award in 1995 for his High Mass and the Swedish Music Publishers’ Award in 2013 for a second Requiem setting.
Sven-David Sandström – In the Footprints of Bach