Background and studies

The versatile Ruth Sofia Almén was born 24 September 1870 in Kålltorp, located in the parish of Solberga in Bohus County, the daughter of the vicar Johan Aron Andersson Almén and Johanna Karolina Hellevi (née Rydingsvärd). The author Sigge Almén was her younger brother. For much of her life, until her death on 19 November 1945, she lived in Gothenburg where, from 1897, she was a teacher of piano and music theory, alongside her activities as a composer, poet and writer. Long before she completed her musical studies she published her first literary work in 1895, the poetry collection Vid synranden, under the pseudonym Runar Alm, a name by which she appeared as both a writer and a composer until 1904.

Almén’s musical development was influenced by a number of teachers, both in piano and music theory. For a term, she studied piano in Stockholm with Richard Andersson, whose enthusiasm she describes as ‘a magic wand, which transforms the beloved activity of studying into a game, from which one, with a sigh, returns to a necessary rest’ (from ‘Mitt möte med musiken’). Following this, another of Andersson’s students, Knut Bäck, taught her piano for over seven years in Gothenburg and from autumn 1897 also tutored her in harmony. Around 1900, she made many trips during the summer to take piano lessons in Berlin with Heinrich Barth, with whom both Bäck and Andersson, and also Wilhelm Stenhammar had studied. Much later she spent a year in Paris to study piano with the distinguished Chopin and Fauré interpreter Robert Lortat.

Also in the area of music theory Almén acquired influences from a number of different directions. She received instruction in harmony from Gustaf Hägg in Stockholm, and in counterpoint and fugue from Wilhelm Stenhammar in Gothenburg. She also studied the theory of musical form with Knud Jeppesen and harmonic theory with Otto Malling, both in Copenhagen, and orchestration with Karl Westermeyer in Berlin.

Musical works

Ruth Almén’s musical output includes two piano sonatas, a violin sonata, piano pieces and songs, as well as a concerto for piano and orchestra. The sonatas and the concerto are large-scale works, while the songs demonstrate a miniature-like character. Several of the latter have texts that were written by the composer herself.

The sonority resulting from Almén’s manner of writing for the piano is somewhat Brahms-like. At the same time, she occasionally displays rather original ideas regarding chordal connections and harmony. Kungl. Musikaliska akademiens (the Royal Swedish Academy of Music) future long-serving secretary Olallo Morales drew attention to this, in 1905, in a review mentioning how, in one of her songs, ‘the peculiar and yet natural harmonies gave a pleasing colouration’ (Göteborgs Handels- och Sjöfarts-Tidning 18/11).

Almén’s compositions do not seem to have been publicly performed to any great extent. However, the composer participated in a performance of the piano sonata op. 2, the violin sonata and a collection of songs in the Salle Pleyel in Paris on June 8th, 1921, as well as at the Gothenburg Concert Hall on January 20th, 1922. Critical reaction by the Gothenburg press after the concert was mixed. ‘Beside purely repulsive traits, there is much that is effective with the freshness of raw talent,’ writes the initials ‘J. R.’ (Julius Rabe) in Göteborgs Handels- och Sjöfarts-Tidning (21/1 1922) and emphasises the instrumental works as the best in the programme. The Piano Sonata in B minor performed here had previously won Carl Nielsen's benevolence. It was he who recommended the work for publication to Wilhelm Hansen in Copenhagen. A large part of Almén’s other works also appeared in print during her lifetime by Swedish, Danish and German publishers.

Authorship

Besides poetry and song lyrics, Almén’s written output also includes fictional stories, often of a moralistic nature, together with music educational stories aimed at children. In addition, she contributed as a writer to Göteborgs Handels- och Sjöfarts-Tidning.

In Musiktomtarna and Den underbara harpan basic terms and concepts in music teaching are portrayed in the form of fairytales. There is, for example, an episode with two little fairies named Iss and Ess (Sharp and Flat), where Iss always wants to go to the right and Ess always to the left, together with a depiction of the little garden gnomes Legato, Staccato and Portato whose personalities and body movements correspond to the different types of musical articulation with these names. Musiktomtarna carries a short recommendation by her previous teacher Richard Andersson.

Martin Edin © 2016
trans. Robin McGinley