visits since November 2001, not counting the editor
A more concise biography can be found by clicking your way at STIM/Swedish music information centre - Biographies
This sketch is mostly based on information from Hilding Rosenberg’s memoirs ”Toner från min örtagård” (Tones from my garden, only in Swedish), published in 1978 by Natur och Kultur, ISBN 91-27-00876-2. The text of the memoirs was edited by Karin Jacobsson.
For the moment this sketch is more of a note-book assembly of facts and dates than a readable text. Only the future can tell wether it will evolve or stay this way. Pardon the English!
In Carl-Gunnar Åhlén's booklet to Rosenberg plays Rosenberg (Caprice 21510) there's an extensive listing of HR:s appearances as conductor, pianist and organist. It isn't included here.
This page will be enlarged gradually. It's arranged in a chronological way.
1. Relatives
2. Childhood at Bosjökloster
3. Youth in Trelleborg and Vemmenhög
4. Stockholm, studies
5. Dresden, Berlin
6. Paris, Gothenburg, Gävle
7. Stockholm, marriage and work
8. The thirties
9. The fourties
10. The fifties
11. The sixties
12. The seventies
13. The eighties
HR:s paternal grandfather Johan was born 1818 in Blentarp, Skåne (Scania, southern Sweden). Johan became a gardener and married Christine Louise Pamp (HR:s parents thus were second cousins). Johan died in an accident 1859. He and Christine Louise got 4 sons: the oldest one being Carl Magnus, the youngest Daniel, born 1858.
HR:s maternal grandfather Anders Pamp was born 1850 at Bosjökloster, Skåne, where he later worked as a gardener. His wife is buried at the church of Bosjökloster.
HR:s father Carl Magnus was born at Barsebäck, Skåne. He studied at Löwes market garden in Denmark and began work as a gardener at Bosjökloster in 1874. Later he designed ”det rosenbergska måttet” (the Rosenberg measure, editor’s translation) for measuring the honeycomb.
HR:s mother Dothilda Carolina Pamp was born in Ottarp, near Helsingborg, Skåne. She was called Hilda. She was the oldest daughter in her family and started to work in the kitchen at Bosjökloster as a young girl. It was there that she met Carl Magnus and got married to him the 8 November 1876 in Farstorp church by the vicar ÅG Bergquist. She died in 1912.
HR:s father’s brother Gustaf was gardener at Vanås
castle.
HR:s father’s brother Axel from Klågerup was sold at an
auction as a child. This was a Swedish custom in those days if
the family couldn’t support their children. The seller was
the authorities, the buyer the one who demanded least money from
the authorities to give the child a new home.
HR:s father’s sister Amanda lived at Apelbergsgatan in
Stockholm with her husband Daniel.
HR:s mother’s sister Emma lived in Duluth, USA.
Gustaf, HR:s oldest sibling, became organist in Skurup,
Skåne. He was HR:s first music teacher. He married Ulla.
Hilma, HR:s oldest sister, earned her living in gentry kitchens.
Johan, HR:s second oldest brother, played cornet and worked in
the smithy at an aunt in Mellby as a youth. Later he became an
engine driver.
HR:s sister Anna Sofia died after a few days. Don’t know her
proper place in the order of siblings.
HR:s brother Sigvard became a military musician, played clarinet
at ”Södra Skånska Infanteriregementet”. Later an
organist and photographer.
HR:s sister Frida. I think she was born between Sigvard
and Axel.
HR:s brother Axel was closest in age to HR.
HR himself was the youngest of Carl Magnus and Hilda’s eight
children.
HR:s wife was born Vera Josephson. They got married 30 August
1921. Their children were;
Margita, born 7 July 1924, became a ceramist.
Ann Sofi, born 19 April 1927, became a singer.
Before Margita, possibly in 1922, he and Vera also got a girl who
died.
Vera’s brother Gunnar Josephsson (1889-1972) had a bookstore and was chairman of the Mosaic Congregation in Stockholm. Her brother Ragnar Josephsson (1891-1966) was an arts- and architecture-historian, a writer and poet, later a professor and one of the ”immortal eighteen” (member of the Swedish Academy).
Hilding Rosenberg was born 21 June 1892 at Bosjökloster, between Ringsjöarna ("the Ring Lakes") in Skåne, southern Sweden (http://www.bosjokloster.com/karta_eng.html). Bosjökloster was built as a convent in the twelfth century by the Benedictine order.
HR was baptised the 7 July 1892 in the church at Bosjökloster.
His teacher in the elementary school in Orup was Mathias Lindberg, who also was his godfather. He only spent four (or possibly six) years in ordinary school. Between the years in ordinary school and those as a musician/student he worked in the Bosjökloster garden.
HR sang in the boy’s choir in church during four or five years from the age of eight. He started practising playing the piano after notes at the age of 8 or 9.
HR started practising the violin around the age of 10. He got lessons from cantor Svensson in Klinta. After a while they used the then brand new violin school-book (p1903) by Tor Aulin (Swedish composer, 1866-1914). The piano would remain the main instrument though.
HR practised the althorn around 1907, later during the military service also valve trombone. He also practised playing the clarinet for his brother Sigvard.
HR studied for the cantor- and organistexam at his brother Gustaf in Skurup.
HR was confirmated by Johan Peter Melén, ”the happiest preacher in Skåne”, who played the flute. Yes, HR came from a Christian family.
Around 1906-7 HR participated in the Bosjökloster shooting club.
At midsummer 1908 HR and his organist-brothers participated in the organist-meeting in Kristianstad, Skåne. They went there by bicycle.
In 1909 HR took an organist exam for the organist at the cathedral in Kalmar. Amongst the pieces he played were JS Bach's Fantasia and fugue in G minor (BWV 542) and Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata opus 13 (on the piano). This exam gave HR the right to deputize as organist. For a regular work as a cantor he also needed knowledge of and skill in vaccination and blood-letting. This HR got in 1914 from HA Nordquist, the district medical officer.
In 1909 HR’s father & family moved from Bosjökloster to a mission hall close to the Market Garden in Trelleborg, where his father got work.
HR deputized in the area’s churches and also started teaching music privately. He composed small piano pieces, probably lost.
HR played with a violinist at a cinema in Trelleborg. The two travelled to Copenhagen to see Wagner’s Die Walküre, HR’s first opera visit.
HR studied piano playing for John Heintze (1886-1937, also a composer) in Malmö, first privately, later as a pupil at the Malmö Music Conservatory, founded by the Italian Giovanni Tronchi.
HR bought a piano (pay by instalments), practised on Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No 27 in E Minor, opus 90.
HR performed at concerts in Skåne with the cellist Oscar Vinberg.
HR played in the second violinpart of the Trelleborg Orchestra, founded by the town’s organist.
In 1912 HR’s mother Hilda died.
In 1912 HR did his military service at Revinge hed, Skåne.
In 1913 or 1914 HR started deputizing for the organist of Eastern and Western Vemmenhög’s parishes. He founded choirs and won many friends. He lived in the home of the local storekeeper. A farmer’s son lent him 500 SEK to enable him to travel to Stockholm with the intention to study the piano for Richard Andersson (1851-1918). He got a gold watch from the parish as a thanks for his deputizing, although it wasn’t very long.
The summer of 1914 HR visited the Baltic Exhibition in Malmö and was impressed by the modern expressions in works by Wassily Kandinsky (for instance http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/kandinsky/). Composition no. VI was among the four Kandinsky paintings shown.
Arriving to Stockholm HR rents a room in the home of a working class family on Kungsholmsgatan.
Richard Andersson’s home as well as music school was located on the second floor of Brunnsgatan 28. HR visits it immediately, shows his skill at the piano and is accepted as a student. He starts practising the piano for one of the minor teachers. At Richard Andersson’s Music School the drawing room contained two large pianos, one Blüthner and one Östlind & Almquist. There were a frieze painted by Nils Zeilon depicting Elysium, that HR & Vera later had in their house in Ålsten. The school was founded in 1885.
At Richard Andersson’s Music School he also studied harmony for Harald Fryklöf (1882-1919), organist at Storkyrkan, teacher at the Music Conservatory and a composer nowadays most famous for his Sonata alla legenda for violin & piano (1918). HR practised to harmonise chorals after Fryklöf’s own primer, "Harmonisering av koraler i dur och moll jämte kyrkotonarterna" (1915). They also used Aron Bergenson's (1848-1914, Sweden, a former teacher at the Stockholm Music Conservatory) "Harmonilära" from 1899.
After a couple of months HR began practising the piano for Richard Andersson himself. Elin Lagerberg, the wife of Richard Andersson, starts making HR ”fit for the drawing room” (HR:s own expression from the memoirs, translated by the editor).
HR‘s finances gets in a crises and he is forced to take a loan from the widow of a wealthy relative.
In 1915 HR applied to study composition at the Musical Academy. He sent his Sonata for Violin and Piano in D Minor (recently refound in the Bomgren archive) as evidence of his skill. He was accepted and studied counterpoint and composition for Ernst Ellberg 1915-1917 (1868-1948, also active as a composer, but today perhaps mostly remembered as the one who made the first orchestration of Franz Berwald’s Sinfonie capricieuse). HR was registered at the Conservatory until the autumn of 1919, except a break the spring of 1919. Besides counterpoint and composition, he studied elementary song, singing in choir, conducting and the history and aesthetics of music. He didn’t take any exams until the organistexam in 1923. According to Erik Lundkvist in Musikrevy 4/1992 he also studied organ for Gustaf Hägg (1867-1925, also a composer, today mostly remembered for his Piano Trio from 1896)
In 1917 HR started to educate at the Music School of Richard Andersson.
In 1916 or 1917 Wilhelm Stenhammar visited the Music School of Richard Anderssons in order to meet HR. They discussed HR:s 1915-6 Symphony (No 0, lost except it’s Adagio), of which Stenhammar prefered the first movement.
HR gets called up for a military ”refresher course” at Svea Livgarde (Stockholm).
In March 1917 HR was shaken by a performance of Sibelius fourth symphony. Already before this event he had Sibelius as the great master. In a conversation with Bo Wallner 1971 he mentions the slow movement's ethereal intensity as especially important to him. In a radio program in 1957 (in memory of Sibelius) HR said that he only once more had experienced such a synthesis of ecstasy and asceticism: in Fra Angelico's frescos in the Convent of San Marco, Venice (check for instance http://www.artchive.com/artchive/F/fra_angelico.html).
The summer of 1917 HR was invited to spend with Richard Andersson & Elin Lagerberg at their country house at Båven, Sörmland (slightly south of Stockholm). It’s here that HR on Richard Andersson’s exhortation starts practising his ”inner ear”, to enable him to compose directly on paper without using the piano, except as a final control. He works on his first symphony (No 1).
HR also spent the christmas 1917 with Richard Andersson & Elin Lagerberg at their Båven house, where he read Adolf Johansson’s novel ”De röda huvudena” and started to compose the 3 Fantasy Pieces for orchestra (only harp part remains today). A letter from Stenhammar 11 July 1918 commends them. The 15 January 1919 they are premiered by Wilhelm Stenhammar and the Gothenburg orchestra at the Concert Hall of Gotheburg with HR in the audience.
Bach’s Goldberg variations in an arrangement for 2 pianos by Rheinberger was practised at the Richard Andersson Music School by Vera Josephson and Siri Holmgren for a pupil’s concert at the auditorium of the Musical Academy. Vera Josephson became a private student for Richard Andersson as a 13 year old. She also studied harmony for Fryklöf at the same time as HR. HR is summoned to compose a Piano Quintet for the pupil’s concert. It’s played the 23 February 1918 by HR & Tobias Wilhelmi’s String Quartet, but soon burnt.
The 25 May 1918 Richard Andersson dies. HR spent 4 years in the home and school of Richard Andersson.
The Society of Swedish Composers (FST) is founded 29 November 1918, with HR as one of its originators.
The 26 February 1919 HR makes his conducting debut in Norrköping with his own 3 Fantasy Pieces.
HR comes in contact with Elsa Bomgren in Nora, a former pupil of Richard Andersson. The Bomgren family supports HR economically and socially during a couple of years. They rent a cottage in Born, nearby Nora (http://www.nora.se/turism/utlandsk/Eng/index.htm) for him and he moves there in april 1919.
In september 1919 he returns to Stockholm to teach at the Richard Andersson Music School, now run by the other teachers. HR leaves lots of compositions in the Born cottage. At a number of times in the twenties he begs Elsa Bomgren to burn them, but she doesn’t (as she is uncertain if he means all or just some of them) and after her death, they reappear and are now at the Music Library of Sweden, Stockholm.
It’s a loan from the Bomgren family and a scholarship from the Musical Academy that enables HR to realise his plans of a journey to study in Dresden. He sets off soon after New Year's Day 1920. During the stay in Dresden the Bomgren family supports HR also with necessities hard to come by in war-thorn Germany.
Vera Josephson and Siri Holmgren were in Dresden before HR arrived. They were there practising the piano for Richard Buchmayer (1856-1934). Vera Josephson had sent HR an invitation from Kurt Striegler (1886-1958), conductor at the Dresdner Staatsoper to study conducting for him. In march 1920 HR also began taking piano lessons for Richard Buchmayer.
HR rented a room in Dresden. He rented a piano. He got German education from Vera’s boarding house hostess, Anna Goetze. HR, Vera and Siri often visited the opera and concerts. They spent much time at the theatres, often on the initiative of Goetze. Anna Goetze died during the second world war bombings of Dresden.
HR heard Arnold Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony No 1 for the first time and was profoundly shaken by the experience.
In may 1920 HR and Vera got engaged.
The spring/summer of 1920 HR hiked in Switzerland with Vera, Siri and Harald von Heijne, another former Richard Andersson-pupil, at the time studying in Berlin. There’s a wonderful photo from this hike in the memoirs. The photo is also included in Per Olov Broman's book "Hilding Rosenberg" from the "Svenska tonsättare" series, ISBN 978-91-7353-138-2.
The summer of 1920 HR and Vera travels to Berlin to meet Vera’s mother Ann Sofi and announce the engagement. Ann Sofi breaks a leg, spends some time in a hospital in Berlin and then recuperates with HR and Vera in Oberbärenburg.
HR spends parts of the summer 1920 alone in Berlin, associates with Harald von Heijne and visits concerts. He lives in a boarding house.
In june 1920 HR visits Weimar for the music festival 50. Tonkünstlerversammlung des Allgemeinen Deutschen Musikvereins.
HR spent the autumn of 1920 in Paris. He lived at the boarding house of the Bretesche family and got French lessons from madame Bretesche. He gets in contact with Henri Rabaud, the manager of the Conservatory and is allowed to study scores at it’s library (Debussy, Ravel, Les Six and others). He also visits the rehearsals of the Concerts Pasdeloup conducted by Rhené-Baton (1879-1940). He visits lots of other concerts, exhibitions etcetera. Among the Swedes in Paris he meets Nils Grevillius (conductor) and Viking Dahl (1895-1945, composer mostly remembered for the ballet Maison de fous), both active in the Swedish ballet. It’s during the time in Paris that he completes the first string quartet, begun in Dresden.
HR leaves Paris and travels back to Sweden for christmas. He stays in Skåne a couple of days, giving a concert in Trelleborg with a female singer performing songs he’s written before the journey and possibly also the 2 Hebbel Songs from 1920. He continues to Stockholm by train.
At the beginning of 1921 HR moves to Gothenburg. For a while he writes reviews for a local newspaper (GT, the texts were published between 13 January and 21 April according to Per Olov Broman’s dissertation). Vera comes on a visit. Her friend Signe Blaustein is married to the theatrical director Per Lindberg. The four meet. Per Lindberg is at that very moment collaborating with Stenhammar on the theatre music for Chitra. At a party held by Henriette Magnus HR also meets Selma Lagerlöf (Swedish novelist, 1858-1940) and Wilhelm Stenhammar.
In may 1921 HR travels to Vienna (according to Broman’s dissertation).
The summer of 1921 HR works as pianist at the restaurant Grand in Gävle, some 150 km north of Stockholm. ”The darkest days of my life”, he writes more than fifty years later. He felt as a complete failure both as a musician and as a composer. He worried about how to be able to provide for a family. He had difficulty composing. Nevertheless, looking at the worklist one notices that there's three pieces dating from 1921: the Plastic Scenes (8 piano pieces), the Trio for flute, violin & viola and the first Solo Violin Sonata. According to the memoirs he also tried to revise the first string quartet that very summer.
He returns to Stockholm in august 1921. On the 30 August 1921 HR and Vera Josephson marries (civil) in Vera’s mother Ann Sofi’s flat. Vera’s brother Gunnar (1889-1972) runs a bookstore and is chairman of the Mosaic Congregation in Stockholm. Her brother Ragnar (1891-1966) is an arts- and architecture-historian, a writer and poet, later a professor and one of the ”immortal eighteen” (member of the Swedish Academy). HR experiences a culture clash between his ”simple”, rural family and Vera’s cultural. Vera and HR settles on Karlbergsvägen in Stockholm.
From january 1922 and one and a half year ahead HR works as a cinema-musician (organist) at Röda Kvarn (”Red Mill”), Biblioteksgatan in Stockholm. He’s payed 800 SEK monthly. At the inauguration of the organ HR is filmed playing Bach’s Toccata & fugue in D Minor and improvising. The conductor of the cinema-orchestra is Rudolf Sahlberg. It’s he and HR who chooses the music to accompany the films. There's 20 musicians in the orchestra!
Possibly in 1922 HR:s & Vera’s first child is born, a girl, but dies soon.
In 1922 Vera and HR travels to Italy: Berlin - Nürnberg - Rothenburg - Bodensee - München - Bolzano - Klobenstein - Como (it’s cathedral inspires to the Sinfonia da Chiesa No 1) - Milano - home.
HR conducted his first entire orchestral concert the 17 December 1922 in Gävle: his own 3 Fantasy Pieces (1918), Berwald’s fourth symphony and Yngve Sköld’s (1899-1992, Sweden) Concert Fantasy for piano & orchestra.
Tuesday 6 March 1923 the Kjellström Quartet premieres the first string quartet (second version, now lost) at a concert arranged by Kammarmusikföreningen (Chamber Music Society) in KFUK:s (YWCA's) hall, Brunnsgatan 3 in Stockholm. Before Rosenberg's quartet one plays Josef Eriksson's Bucolica-suite for string quartet and Arvid Arnman's Herr Snakendal for song and piano trio.
The summer of 1923 is spent in Dalecarlia.
HR involves himself in the Swedish section of ISCM (International Society for Contemporary Music) and becomes it’s vice chairman. The concerts organised by ISCM are usually held in the auditorium of the YMCA (KFUM). The 11 april 1924 the Chamber Symphony No 1 of Arnold Schoenberg is performed for the first time in Sweden. The conductor is HR, Charles Barkel is the concertmaster and the musicians come from the Stockholm Konsertföreningen’s Orchestra.
The 7 July 1924 their girl Margita is born. HR participates at the delivery. Both Margita and later Ann Sofi were delivered at home, with assistance from a midwife. The Sinfonia da Chiesa No 2 is written as an expression of HR:s happiness over Margita’s arrival.
HR writes in his memoirs (page 83) that he wrote theatre music to a play (an attempt) written by a schoolgirl and that it was performed in the prescence of Sven Hedin (http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/shedin.htm). It ought to have been between the time at Richard Andersson’s Music School and before the works with Per Lindberg. Anyone who knows more about this music. I suppose it’s lost, but who was the writer and did the play get published?
30 december 1924 HR participates in the first (experimental) radio broadcast in Sweden. In the studio at Malmskillnadsgatan, Stockholm HR plays the piano, Charles Barkel the violin and Gertrud Rybeck-Olson is the singer in a program with music by Locatelli, Handel, Zimbalist, Geijer, Sibelius, Dvorak/Kreisler, Schumann & Milhaud. Eventually a Radio Orchestra (chamber sized) is formed with Nils Grevillius as conductor and HR at the piano/harmonium. The reason that HR:s early music for the radio theatre often was scored for chamber ensembles was that one yet hadn’t explored the possibilities of the media. It was dynamically limited, different instruments ”carried through” differently and one didn’t want to scare off an unexperienced audience with too strong expressions. In the first studio at Malmskillnadsgatan there weren't physical room for more than seven or eight musicians.
Between 1923 and 1925 (possibly even until 1927) HR had lessons in counterpoint for Wilhelm Stenhammar, who then lived at Västra Trädgårdsgatan, Stockholm. As textbook they used Heinrich Bellermann's Der Contrapunkt (1862). They studied Palestrina’s music and Johann Joseph Fux’ book Gradus ad Parnassum (1742). As a teacher himself later on, HR used Gregorian examples and Knud Jeppesen’s book on counterpoint from 1930.
16 January 1925 Wilhelm Stenhammar conducts HR:s Sinfonia da chiesa No 1 (1923) at the Royal Opera in Stockholm. The composer Gösta Nystroem (1890-1966) is on visit from Paris, attends the concert and gets shocked at the progress in local contemporary music.
In April 1925 HR is the pianist in the first Swedish performance of Stravinsky's Petrushka led by Pierre Monteux.
HR is repititeur for the Swedish première in january 1926 of Debussy's opera Pelléas et Mélisande.
For HR:s theatre music to classical plays the ”Hymn to Apollo” on a marble plate in the museum in Delphi (http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_1/delphic.html) served as a model.
The 19 April 1927 HR:s and Vera’s daughter Ann Sofi was born.
The summer of 1927 they rent a house at Tullingesjön (Lake Tullinge, Stockholm). Among the neighbours were Alice Tegnér (1864-1943, writer and composer, mostly famous for children’s songs), who they meet a couple of times. HR spent much time with Julius Rabe (music scientist).
In 1928 the family moved to a new house at Sångmöstigen in the Ålsten area of Bromma, Stockholm.
At the end of the twenties HR considered to reduce his compositional activities and conduct more. In 1929 he studied Hermann Scherchen’s new book Lehrbuch des Dirigierens. The summer of 1930 HR participated in a conductor’s course led by Scherchen (1891-1966) in Königsberg. They were 11 participants: five Germans, three Swiss’, one Russian, one Dutch and HR. Scherchen arrived late and immediately went on holiday to the seaside resort at Kranz, near Riga. The pupils followed him. HR practised on Bach’s D Major Suite and Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat. They used an orchestra only at the final test where HR conducted Königsberg’s Radio Orchestra in the first two movements of Bach and Stravinsky.
In february 1931 HR held a lecture on contemporary music in Uppsala (Musikhistoriska föreningen) and Lund (Akademiska föreningen).
Between 1932 and 1934 HR worked as a conductor at the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm. The opera at that time was led by the former baritone John Forsell. HR:s debut was with Mozart’s Figaro the 16 August 1932. Forsell encouraged HR to compose an opera and he accepted. Eventually the Swedish writer Alf Henrikson suggested the emigration to America as it’s subject and became the librettist. Resa till Amerika (Journey to America) was premiered 24 November 1932 and got five performances. HR also conducted Dahlgren’s Wermlänningarne, Adam’s Si j’étais roi!, Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana, Gounod’s Romeo & Julia, Flotow’s Martha and Mozart’s Zauberflöte. His last performance was 11 March 1934 with Cavalleria Rusticana.
In 1933 HR visited Milano.
HR was elected to the ISCM-jury for the Firenze-festival 1934 and got Lars-Erik Larsson’s Sinfonietta a place in the program.
In 1934 HR met Hjalmar Gullberg for the first time when Hus med dubbel ingång (House with two doors) was premiered in Gothenburg. The play was translated by Hjalmar Gullberg and Ivar Harrie and set to music by HR. Gullberg would become very important to HR both as a poet and the one who commissioned music for the Swedish Broadcasting Corporation.
In 1937 HR and Vera travelled to Paris for the world fair, a copyright congress and the fifteenth ISCM festival. At the festival HR conducted his Symphonie concertante on his birthday (21 June). Other Swedes on the journey to Paris included the entire Stockholm PO (Konsertföreningens orkester), Nils Grevillius, Sven Brandel, Jussi Björling, Hugo Alfvén, Eric Westberg and Gunnar Jeanson.
In 1940 HR became a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music.
Probably in 1940 he gets a phone call from Ninnan Santesson, a sculptress living in Lidingö, Stockholm. She tells him that Bertolt Brecht is living as a guest in her house and that he wants to meet HR for a theatre project. They meet and decides to set Brecht’s play Das Verhör des Lucullus with music for radio theatre. There’s a meeting between Brecht, HR and Hjalmar Gullberg, the manager of the Radio Theatre. The Radio bought Brecht’s play but there never appeared any commission for music to it. HR had ideas and plans for the music but they were never written down.
At a dinner in the early fourties one of the wellknown Swedish nationalromantic composers refuses to take Vera Rosenberg in to dinner (as she was Jewish).
The summer of 1941 was spent in Skälderviken, just north of Ängelholm in northwest Scania.
The summer of 1942 is spent in Värmland, Torsten Sörenson comes along to study composition for HR.
The summers 1943, 1944 and 1945 the Rosenbergs spent in Hjortnäs (Dalarna, Dalecarlia) at the Svadäng family. The summer of 1944 Sven-Eric Johanson, Ingvar Lidholm and Klas Thure Allgén came along to study composition for HR (see photo in Per Olov Broman's "Hilding Rosenberg", the "Svenska tonsättare" series, ISBN 978-91-7353-138-2.)
In the mid-fourties HR, Dag Wirén and other Swedish composers often gets invited to Mr. Pollock at the English embassy, a music lover with a large collection of 78:s. Bela Bartok's string quartets are among the records played. Pollock is also involved in a cooperation between HMV, STIM (Swedish Performing Rights Society) and FST (Society of Swedish Composers) to issue Swedish music (Rosenberg's fourth quartet etc) on 78:s.
HR gathers 25 good amateurs and thus founds the Bromma Orchestra. In october 1944 they give a concert with some of HR's arrangements of pieces by Roman.
Between 1945 and 1949 HR was a member of the editorial committee of the Swedish monthly music magazine "Musikvärlden". The other members were Ingmar Bengtsson, Curt Berg, Gösta Morin and Julius Rabe. Folke H Törnblom was the editor. The magazine was closed down after five years.
From 1945 and onwards HR was a member of the Repertoire Committee at the Music Department of the Swedish Broadcasting Corporation.
In february 1945 HR has put together the text to the Joseph-tetralogy after Thomas Mann’s four books. Hjalmar Gullberg reads it. The 26 march 1945 HR with the support of Gullberg writes a letter to Mann seeking his approval of the project. In july Thomas Mann (living in California) sends a letter of support, but leaves all work (and all the freedom) to HR. The first two parts are premiered in 1946, part 3 in 1947 and part 4 in 1948.
In 1947 Lars-Erik Larsson began work as Sweden's first professor in composition. Considering his greater experience in teaching, HR would have been the natural choice. In fact he also applied for it, but was 9 (nine) days older than the regulations stipulated as a maximum.
Journey to Greece with visits to islands in the Aegean Sea, Patmos etc. Don’t know what year.
Journey to Rome when their younger daughter Ann Sofi is married (civil) at Capitolium. The son-in-law arranges a trip to Palestrina (the village famous for it’s composer).
In 1948 the Rosenbergs invites Rafael Kubelik, who’s in Sweden conducting, to dinner at their Ålsten house. They eat Chateaubriand. After dinner Kubelik reveals that he hasn’t eaten meat in three years time, that it was excellent, but that he actually is a vegeterian. Lots of laughter?
The 9 April 1948 HR and his elder daughter Margita travels
from Gothenburg to New York on the ship Gripsholm. In the US they
mostly travel by train; New York, Columbia University, Chicago
(11/5), Texas, New Mexico, Los Angeles, San Fransisco, Seattle
(then plane to) Minneapolis, Duluth, Chicago once again (4/6),
Detroit, New York again, Washington, Philadelphia, New York once
again and then homewards!
It’s the performance of the fourth symphony (first version,
English text) in Chicago the 11 May that causes the later
revision from recited to sung text. The reciter got it all wrong!
One of the choirs is led by Harry Carlson, the man who arranged
HR:s journey.
HR meets Thomas Mann (73 years old) at his house in California.
In Minneapolis HR meets Alrik Gustafsson, a Strindberg
specialist.
In Duluth HR and Margita meets his mother’s sister Emma, 82
years old.
The 4 Juni HR conducts 2 short pieces in Chicago at the 100-year
jubilee of the Swedish-American Pioneers. In the audience one
could find the president Harry Truman, the poet Carl Sandburgh
and 23000 (sic!) others.
HR meets the Swedish sculptor Carl Milles, then living in the
Detroit-suburb Cranbrook.
In 1949 HR, Vera and Margita travels in Italy for three months. They go by bus through a still war-thorn Germany. There’s carneval time in Basel. Montreux, Brig, Milano. They go by train to Rome, where Ann Sofi joins them. She’s living in Rome, studying song. They rent three rooms at Pensione Fosi. 2 months are spent in Rome, often in the company of Bengt Thordeman (the numismatist?) and his wife Karin. They visit operas, concerts, museums etc. HR:s former pupil Leif Kayser is in Rome studying to become a catholic priest. They visit Sicily and the ISCM-festival in Palermo. Back to Rome. Homewards through Assisi, Perugia. They stay for two weeks in Florence for the Maggio Musicale-festival, living at a boarding house close to Palazzo Pitti. They continue to Venice, Milano and eventually Sweden.
Between 1949 and 1952 HR teaches Åke Hermansson (1923-96) composition.
In 1950 HR gets the Cultural Award from the Skåne newspaper Sydsvenska Dagbladet.
The spring of 1950 HR visits Jean Sibelius at his home, Ainola.
In 1951 HR got the medal Litteris et artibus, the foremost of the Royal Swedish awards.
HR is Vice-President of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music 1951-1953.
In 1952 HR participated at the ISCM-festival in Salzburg.
The 1956 ISCM Festival was held in Stockholm.
The Rosenbergs gets a summer house at Stanstorp by the Ring Lakes in Skåne.
In 1957 HR became a Honorary Ph. D. at the Uppsala University.
In november 1957 HR and Vera invites Otto Kyndel (violinist, 1904-83) and Bo Wallner to dinner in their home. Not a word is said about what he's been up to during the last year. After dinner the guests are led to the piano, where the score to the seventh quartet lies. And next to it there's the scores to an eight, a ninth, a tenth, an eleventh and a twelfth quartet! The Kyndel Quartet premiered all six between 581107 and 591211.
In the autumn 1960 HR got a grant from the Swedish Broadcasting Corporation and Lions Club on 20 000 SEK (quite a lot!). The other recipients were Gösta Nystroem, Karl-Birger Blomdahl, Sven-Erik Bäck and Bo Nilsson.
Daniel Börtz (born 1943), whose father is a cousin of HR, became a pupil in 1961. The first year they only met every second month and sent letters inbetween. The autumn of 1962 Börtz moved to Stockholm and had private lessons for HR during a year.
In 1962 HR got the Promotion of Music Medal (För tonkonstens främjande), the foremost of honours at The Royal Swedish Academy of Music’s disposal.
The 1966 ISCM Festival was held in Stockholm. HR was a Honorary Member of the ISCM along Sten Broman, Bartok, Hindemith, Ravel, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Vaughan Williams and others.
In 1970 Margot Hedeman made a bronze sculpture of HR. It's at the Gripsholm Castle in Mariefred.
In 1972 HR has his portrait painted in oil by Lillemor Tell. She donated the painting to the Stockholm Concert Hall. It's also on the cover of "Den europeiske Rosenberg", ISBN 91-630-5636-4.
In 1977 HR records some spoken texts for the Swedish Broadcasting Corporation, the third symphony and Prometeus och Ahasverus among others.
In 1978 the memoirs Toner från min örtagård (Tones from My Garden, only in Swedish as far as I know) is published.
Since HR:s 90:th birthday 1982 the Society of Swedish Composers (FST) awards a Rosenberg Prize to a (Swedish) composer of significance and originality. It has been awarded to; Ingvar Lidholm, Hans Holewa, Lars-Gunnar Bodin, Jan W Morthenson, Åke Hermanson, Anders Eliasson, Sven-Erik Bäck, Sven-Eric Johanson, Lars Johan Werle, Arne Mellnäs, Akós Rozman, Bo Nilsson, Lars Edlund, Bengt Hambræus, Daniel Börtz, Åke Parmerud, Sven-David Sandström, Mikael Edlund, Hans Gefors, Rolf Enström, André Chini, Dror Feiler, Pär Lindgren, Anders Hillborg, Karin Rehnqvist (2006), Rolf Martinsson (2007), Henrik Strindberg (2008).
During the last years HR is practically blind and thus unable to compose.
In the spring of 1984 HR donates his scores, texts etcetera to the Music Library of Sweden (listed at http://www.muslib.se/hand/fort/rosenber.html).
HR is present at the Stockholm Cultural Center (Kulturhuset).the 10 May 1984 when Harald Grimsrud, Nicola Boruvka, Svein Harald Martinsen and Magnus Larsson premieres his forgotten 1942 string quartet, the one with a finale finished by his former pupils Sven-Erik Bäck, Daniel Börtz and Ingvar Lidholm. Possibly this was his last concert visit.
Hilding Rosenberg dies the 19 May 1985.
Vera Rosenberg dies the 11 March 1986.
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