Johan Leonard Höijer is unusually hard to depict. Very little is known about his childhood and his upbringing, and the same is true of his last ten to fifteen years of life. However, the period in which he was most productive was so filled with various activities that a detailed description carries the risk of being a boring catalogue. Leonard Höijer, as he is most often called, was a central figure in Sweden’s music life during the middle of the nineteenth century, while his creation of music made up only a part of his overall achievement. The versatility that characterises his working life also influenced him as a composer. He wrote music within several genres and for different contexts, composed secular as well as religious pieces and arranged many of his colleagues’ works. He is best known for his dictionary of music, Musik-Lexikon, published in 1864 and the first in Sweden to include biographical entries.

Life

His younger years

Johan Leonard Höijer was born out of wedlock and was placed in a children’s orphanage. Lars Cronholm, a recording secretary for the Ministry of Justice, became his foster father. Höijer showed an early propensity for music and is said to have written compositions already in his teens. His first known teacher was Pehr Sandbom who played double bass in the Hovkapellet (the Royal Court Orchestra). Lars Cronholm fell victim to the cholera epidemic and died in 1834, when Höijer was just nineteen years old. On Cronholm’s advice, Höijer had taken a job at a trading office, but gave it up to study music that same year − under harsh conditions − at the educational institution of the Kungliga Musikaliska akademien (the Royal Swedish Academy of Music). He completed his organ examination in 1835 and graduated in harmony, organ playing and singing in 1842. He concluded his education with good grades even though, concurrent with music studies, he had to support himself by working as a music teacher.

And so in 1841, he took a job as organist at the French Reformed Church in Stockholm. The following year he took a similar position at Katarina Church, something he continued with until 1880. Since the job of organist at that time was neither particularly well-paid nor full time employment, Höijer took on other jobs. For the most part, he wrote about music, but parallel to this, he worked as a composer and arranger. 

Marriage, criticism and academic work

Leonard Höijer and Julia Westée (1814−1900) were wed in 1843. According to his friend, Richard Bergström, Höijer managed to find ‘a wife who understood him and laid her diligence beside his, so that the economic pressures gradually eased’. The couple never had children.

Together with Erik Drake, Leonard Höijer organised the Musikaliska akademien’s library and after hand, in 1845, he was named as an associé (a non-voting member) of the academy. As an author, Höijer was a regular music reviewer for the Dagligt Allehanda during the years 1848−49, for Bore 1850−51, Svenska Tidningen 1853−59, and he also contributed to Stockholms Figaro, Aftonbladet and Post- och Inrikes Tidningar. In addition he wrote for Tidning för musik and was the publication’s editor from 1853 until 1859.

Music’s factotum − and author

During this very active period in Höijer’s multifaceted career he also was a physical education teacher at the Orthopaedic Institute from 1852 to 1867 where Herman Sätherberg was director. Sätherberg was active as a poet and Höijer was one of many composers who wrote music to his poems. Höijer’s contribution was Slottern, for voice and orchestra (this was the same text used by Valborg Aulin in a choral work). Pedagogical writings on harmony and piano playing, as well as translations of lessons from foreign music schools for both violin and vocal training, were also a part of Höijer’s musical activities. Besides these music-related works, he wrote literary works, in part inspired by author Carl Jonas Love Almqvist, whom he met during his student years and whom he assisted on a song collection, Songes, from 1849. ‘When he played Almqvist [in the music salons), he could almost reconcile the listeners to Almqvist’s idiosyncrasies and banalities’, writes the previously quoted Bergström in his memoir.

Höijer’s huge capacity for working within different realms of music included writing a music dictionary (Musik-Lexikon, published in 1864 with a supplement in 1867), which was the first published in Sweden to include biographies.

Leonard Höijer as a music arranger is a separate chapter in his life. He was behind most of the arrangements of composer Oscar Ahnfelt’s widely disseminated Andeliga sånger (spiritual songs) that was published in instalments during the years 1850−1877. He arranged songs and tunes for folk music collector Richard Dybeck’s publications Runa and Svenska gånglåtar, among several others. And together with librarian Richard Bergström, Höijer published a second edition of Erik Gustaf Geijer and Arvid August Afzelius’s classic ballad collection Svenska folk-visor från forntiden − the title being changed to Svenska folkvisor in 1880. In the first edition the music was arranged by Christian Friedrich Haeffner. In the preface, Höijer explains his own 134 adaptations by stating that ‘new demands asserted themselves, not least because of the richer tonal material that today’s salon instruments offer’. This quote clearly describes for which group of users both editions were intended.

At the end of the 1860s, Leonard Höijer became ill. He retired from public life and devoted himself mainly to composing and arranging. He died in 1884, at the age of 69 at his country house in Helgesta, west of Stockholm near Flen.

Works

Leonard Höijer’s output of compositions and arrangements is quite large, especially considering all the other activities he was engaged in. That he was able to write so many works parallel to all his other duties can be partially explained by the fact that most of his compositions were minor works. Piano and vocal pieces comprise a large part of his oeuvre, which still includes several orchestral compositions.

A significant portion of his songs was published during his lifetime, thereby achieving a wide distribution. This fact says a great deal about his status in the music circles at the time, but also about the publishing contacts he would have had through his authorship.

One is inclined to agree with the previously mentioned collaborator, Richard Bergström, who points out Höijer’s ‘melodic facility’ as a prominent feature in his song writing. Höijer wrote sing-able melodies that followed the words with sensitivity. The arrangements are adroit − that is to say, well crafted without being conspicuously personal. His songs were undoubtedly appreciated at the time, functioning as an accessible form of art music.

A particular number of Höijer’s songs were written for Oscar Ahnfelt’s publication Andeliga sånger. Considering the impact of this publication, one can argue that, as both a composer and arranger, Höijer helped create the music style associated with the Free Church (a Christian Protestant denomination separate from the Church of Sweden). Although Höijer certainly was commissioned, and paid, to write these compositions, his engagement in their creation is quite obvious.

Leonard Höijer’s compositions are generally well written and nicely adapted to their respective contexts − characteristics that certainly caused them to be much in demand. Written in the musical style of their time, with a few exceptions, their popularity has not, however, survived their author. It is therefore not the composer Leonard Höijer, but the author of the country’s first ambitious music dictionary, and of a string of classic folk music publications, who survives in Swedish music history.

Gunnar Ternhag © 2014
Trans. Jill Ann Johnson