Life

Childhood and studies

Knut Bäck was born on 22 April 1868 in Stockholm into a family of civil servants. His parents were Johanna Karolina Malmström and Ludvig Kristoffer Bäck, a protocol secretary at the Swedish steel industry’s trade organisation, Järnkontoret. Bäck entered the Beskowska School in Stockholm during the autumn term in 1876 and graduated in May of 1886. He had begun piano studies the previous autumn with Richard Andersson. After graduating he continued to study piano performance with Andersson up until 1891. Meanwhile he also studied harmony and composition under Emil Sjögren during1886−88, counterpoint with Johan Lindegren (1888−90), and later studied orchestration with Andreas Hallén (1890−91).

After completing his studies in Sweden, Bäck continued to advance in his music studies in Germany. In 1892 he travelled to Berlin together with two schoolmates, Knut Andersson and Wilhelm Stenhammar. Their mutual teacher, Richard Andersson, recommended that all three study piano with Heinrich Barth, who was Andersson’s own teacher at the Berliner Hochschule für Musik (Berlin conservatory of music). Barth had been a student of Hans von Bülow and Carl Tausig, who in turn were both students of Franz Liszt. At the same time Bäck, in contrast to his schoolmates, also studied composition under Max Bruch from 1892 to 1894 at the same institution.

Teaching

After his return from Berlin, Bäck began teaching piano and music theory at Richard Anderssons musikskola. He had earlier worked at the music school as a harmony teacher when it was founded in 1888. At the same time Bäck also gave private lessons in piano performance and music theory.

In 1896 Knut Bäck moved to Gothenburg where he continued with his pedagogic work. The following year he married the piano teacher Dagmar Charlotta Augusta Malm (1873–1959), the daughter of the wholesaler Johan Maximilian Fredrik Malm in Gothenburg. His wife was a great help when he started his own music school, based on the principles of Andersson’s school. Knut Bäck became a sort of Richard Andersson for Gothenburg’s music life and generations of pianists received their training at his school. Among them are the pianists Elisif Lundén-Bergfelt and Wollmar Sandell, composers such as Knut Håkanson and Åke Hermanson – within more serious genres – and Herbert Steen-Östling and Margo Sandström who took more of a popular music direction. Conductors such as Sten Frykberg also received their music education from Knut Bäck. Knut Håkanson reviewed a public student concert given on 13 April 1928 as follows: ‘the young Sten Frykberg played with enviable assuredness and calm’.

Pianist

According to contemporary reviews, Knut Bäck was considered an ‘excellent’ pianist, but with his humble and shy nature he did not pursue a high profile solo career, but rather his activities as a pianist were mainly focused on the playing of chamber music. During his studies at Richard Anderssons musikskola he performed together with Wilhelm Stenhammar in Christian Sinding’s Variations op. 2 for two pianos and later also in Brahms’ Haydn-variations.

After moving to Gothenburg, Bäck performed mainly as a chamber musician, mostly in a string of piano trios. As the accompanist for violinists and singers he participated in performances of Brahms’ Sonata in A major and Scandinavian art songs. Perhaps Bäck’s greatest performance was in 1908 when he and the Gothenburg symphony orchestra, conducted by Stenhammar, performed Beethoven’s Fantasy in C minor op. 80, for piano, choir and orchestra.

Music critic

For a large part of his life in Gothenburg, Bäck also worked as a music critic. The years from 1927 to 1930 are most often mentioned regarding his involvement with the newspaper, Göteborgs Handels- och Sjöfarts- Tidning, and beginning in 1931 until his death he wrote for Göteborgs-Posten. Among the many extant reviews in the Bäck Collection at the Musik- och teaterbiblioteket (Music and Theater Library of Sweden) it is clear, however, that Bäck worked as a critic for Göteborgs-Posten already in the 1910s. As a reviewer Bäck was unbiased, open to new musical expressions and also wrote in a factual and accurate style. Bäck’s reviews are thus an interesting source for understanding the Gothenburg music scene during the first half of the 1900s.

Works

Following in the footsteps of Brahms and Schumann

Knut Bäck’s shyness meant that, with regard to his activities as a composer, he also kept a low profile. Julius Rabe described that for Bäck’s 75th birthday there were plans to pay tribute to him on the radio by performing a number of his songs, ‘and it took a bit of diplomatic ingenuity to persuade him to hand over some of his carefully suppressed works.’ The majority of Bäck’s compositions are manuscripts, while his published works encompass no more than ten pieces. His compositional activities seem to have mainly occurred in two phases. Most of his published compositions were created before the 1910s. During the last ten years of his life Bäck seems to have resumed composing which means that he revised earlier compositions, such as his youthful work Tomten from 1948, and at the same time wrote a couple of major works for choir and orchestra.

Bäck’s compositional style is to a high degree influenced by the Classical-Romantic styles in the spirit of Schumann and Brahms, who also inspired his teacher Richard Andersson as well as Stenhammar’s youthful compositions. This international, German-oriented style was combined in Bäck’s work with influences from Swedish folk music in the spirit of August Söderman. This applies most significantly to many of Bäck’s songs, of which some were consciously written in a folk style. This folk music foundation returns as well in the theme and several of the variations in the op. 2 as well as the piano collection, Lyriska Melodier och Studier op. 7. 

Compositions

Bäck's first composition appears to be the Theme and variations for piano op. 2 performed by the composer at one of Richard Andersson’s public student recitals in 1891. The Variations work was printed by the Musikaliska konstföreningen (the Swedish Art Music Society) in 1895, and a letter sent into the music journal the Svensk Musiktidning commented on the work as follows: ‘the Theme (in B minor) keeps to a folk music style. The Variations are twelve in number, written with talent. The style of the Variations, however, is now becoming obsolete and tiring, more suitable as a conservatory specimen than appealing to the public.’

A string quintet in G minor from 1896−97 is missing among Bäck’s remaining manuscripts. It was played by the Aulin Quartet and Emil Sundqvist, and the Svensk Musiktidning commented in 1898: ‘The beginning of the first movement appeared slightly muddy, but then like the other movements kept to a clear popular style. No real originality was revealed in this work, but it did make a very good impression.’

Among Bäck’s many vocal compositions, one that is particularly notable is the musical setting of Viktor Rydberg’s poem Tomten for baritone and orchestra. The work was published as a piano vocal score by the Musikaliska Konstföreningen in 1901. In his musical setting Bäck seized on the poem’s gloomy attitude to life, questioning the meaning of existence. The basic tone is melancholic and the vocal part and the accompaniment have captured midwinter’s coldness and severity. The work was performed in the orchestral version in 1903 with John Forsell as soloist and conducted by Tor Aulin – it was also performed at the first Swedish music festival in 1906. The composition was reworked in 1948 and performed in its revised version in a radio broadcast in 1951.

Bäck’s piano music is – besides the previously named op. 2 – primarily intended for educational purposes. The collection Lyriska Melodier och Studier op. 7, consisting of fifteen shorter character pieces, displays a rich variety. The pieces are, according to a contemporary critic, ‘to be counted among the better creations of Swedish piano literature, and is especially a treasure for more advanced piano students.’ Two of the pieces in the collection have also been spread internationally by Louis Oesterle’s collection of Scandinavian piano pieces, Album of Scandinavian Piano Music.

Bertil Wikman © 2016
Trans. Jill Ann Johnson