Life

After studying at Uppsala University, Petter Conrad Boman began his work life in 1822 in various government offices and from 1845 he was a clerk for the General Customs Board. Even though he was employed in other areas, he was extensively active as a music journalist. He wrote for the music journals Stockholms musiktidning (from 1843 to 1844) and Ny tidning för musik  (during the years 1853 to 1857). He reviewed new Swedish works and published articles on art music and public musical life in Sweden, often from a historical perspective.

During the 1850s the place of music history within education was much discussed at the educational institution of the Kungliga Musikaliska akademien (the Royal Swedish Academy of Music). Boman became very involved in this issue and in the spring of 1852 he gave a series of lectures on music history at the academy. According to contemporaneous sources the lectures were attended by a ‘large audience’ including, among others, Prince Gustav. Despite positive recognition from the academy there were, for unknown reasons, only a few lectures given the next year.

Petter Conrad Boman was also actively involved with the academy’s library. Together with Wilhelm Bauck, he organised the collections, which by the end of the 1850s had received large donations of material from private people as well as members of the royal house. During this same time, the Musikaliska konstföreningen (the Swedish Art Music Society) was founded with Boman as one of its participants. The aim of the society was to buy and publish unreleased works of Swedish composers in order to promote ‘the development and improve the quality of Swedish art music’.

Works

For the most part Boman composed songs with piano accompaniment and wrote music for a few plays. He had received some instruction in counterpoint from Pehr Frigel, but in general little is known about his musical education. Most of the songs are musical settings of Swedish poets such as Erik Johan Stagnelius, Bernhard von Beskow and Esaias Tegnér. They were published and were likely of interest to the music-making circle of people in the salons of the bourgeoisie. Boman wrote music to six of Tegnér’s songs from Fritiofs saga. The songs are written in classical Viennese style with a narrative character. In certain parts there are allusions to an older folk song style and ballad tradition. Boman’s songs are connected to the great interest in Tegnér’s poetry that had existed since the 1820s, with compositions also by Bernhard Crusell, Mathilda d’Orozco Gyllenhaal and Caroline Ridderstolpe, among others.

Boman was among those who aspired to the stylistic ideals expressed in the compositions of Christoph Willibald Gluck. A concrete example is seen in the four song settings that Boman wrote to texts by Ulrica Carolina Widström. In his notes, Boman indicates that it was an ‘attempt at a composition in Gluck’s style’. The melodies enhance the texts and are supported by the piano accompaniment, contributing to the emotional character of the songs.

Several publications of the music state that the income from them should go to different purposes. Income from the four songs discussed above would go to Widström’s ‘surviving daughters’ and sales from a romance published in 1838, with a text by Stagnelius, would go ‘toward the benefit of the needy in Bohuslän’s archipelago’. Dedications also are present. The songs with texts by Widström are dedicated to ‘Baroness Mrs Aurora Beata Gyllenhaal’, who was married to Carl Henrik Gyllenhaal, who, among other things was an honorary member of the Musikaliska akademien and General Customs Director. These examples show how, at that time, one could use music to help the indigent and gives an indication of the networks within bourgeois musical life.

Boman also arranged music for plays. Byn i bergen (The village in the mountains) and Ljungby horn och pipan (Ljungby horn and flute) were performed only a few times at the Kungliga Teatern (the Royal Opera). The legend-based play Ljungby horn och pipan links Boman to the contemporary practice of portraying the common people through songs that were perceived as folk songs. This is used in contrast to the international musical language for the gentry in the play. The comedy Sedan solen gått ned! (After sundown) was a big success and played in various theatres in Stockholm for almost twenty years. It was originally a French play in one act, which, as was typical, had been reworked by a German playwright before it received a Swedish text by Boman.

While Boman’s musical compositions are rarely performed today, his articles on Swedish music history are still of great interest because of the knowledge they give us about the Swedish music community of the era.

Karin Hallgren © 2015
Trans. Jill Ann Johnson