Life

Childhood and student years

Jacob Axel Josephson was born in Stockholm to Beata Josephson and her husband Salomon, a wholesaler and amateur violinist who was said to have found more fortune in music than in finance. The Josephsons are known for their contributions to Swedish culture: Jacob’s brother Ludvig was a theatre director in Stockholm, his sister Vilhelmina was a prominent pianist and Jacob’s first piano teacher, and his nephew Ernst would go on to be one of the most significant Swedish painters of the 19^th century.

In 1835, on leaving school, where his musical talents had not gone unnoticed, Jacob Josephson started on a course of study at Uppsala University while also working as a private tutor. His musical and literary acumen soon brought him into social orbit around Malla Silverstolpe, County Governor von Kræmer and his family, and Erik Gustaf Geijer. One of his best friends at university was poet and composer Gunnar Wennerberg.

Josephson’s skills at the piano and the songs he now started to compose were well-received in these environments, and the first collection of his songs, dedicated to Jenny Lind, was published in 1841. That year, Jacob converted from Judaism to the Christianity that he had warmly embraced, had himself baptized and took Axel as his middle name. He had already been active in church music and his work in this field would occupy much of his remaining life as a musician. In 1842 Josephson earned his master’s degree with a short dissertation on contemporary music, in which he criticised the lack of artistic content in modern, opera-dominated music and argued that Felix Mendelssohn’s balanced romanticism represented a ‘new rosy dawn’.

At the start of the 1840s, Josephson divided his time between teaching, both privately and at the Katedralskolan (Cathedral School) in Uppsala, and travelling around performing concerts. Thanks to the financial backing of friends Jenny Lind, Julius Günther and others he was able at last to take himself abroad, and embarked on a three-year tour of the continent in the summer of 1844. This took him first to Dresden, where he studied organ for Johann Gottlob Schneider and music theory for Julius Otto, then to Leipzig, which became his main city of residence during this time, although the winter of 1845–46 he spent in Rome. Josephson’s most important contacts in Leipzig were Moritz Hauptmann and Niels W. Gade, although he also made the acquaintance of Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, Louis Spohr and Giacomo Meyerbeer.

Establishment in Uppsala

On his return to Sweden, Josephson settled back in Stockholm, where he led the Harmoniska sällskapet (Harmonic Society). In 1849, two major works by him were performed in the capital: Islossningen for soli, men’s choir and orchestra, and his symphony in E-flat major.

That same year the post of director musices at Uppsala University became available. Josephson applied for it and was accepted, beating a field of competitors that included Franz Berwald. The post, which Josephson retained until his death, suited him and marked the start of a long, successful career with the Akademiska kapellet (Royal Academic orchestra). Choral life in Uppsala was also given fresh impetus by Josephson. Back in 1841 he and some friends had started a mixed choir there called the Lilla sällskapet (Little Company) that devoted itself to ancient church music. Now, in 1849, he founded the Filharmoniska sällskapet (Philharmonic Society) and in 1854 became the director of the newly formed men’s choir Orphei Drängar, which he elevated to unprecedented heights over the coming decades.

In 1864 Josephson was appointed cathedral organist, increasing even more his powers of influence over Uppsala’s musical scene – which he was only too ready and willing to develop. In 1867 he created the Uppsala domkyrkokör (Uppsala cathedral choir), one of the first permanent church choirs in the country. Over the Pentecost seasons of the 1860s and 70s, they performed many major works for soloists, choir and orchestra in full, including Georg Friedrich Handel’s Messiah and Samson, Mendelssohn’s St. Paul and Elias and Joseph Haydn’s The Creation. The performers he drew from his own ensembles, from the Hovkapellet (Orchestra of the Royal Opera) and from military orchestras. These concerts were important musical events and attracted audiences from the capital and beyond.

Pedagogical work and final years

Josephson’s work in music education is also worth a mention. In 1860 he published Elementär-lära i musik (Elementary principles of music) for schools and from 1863 onwards lectured in music history at the university as part of his duties as director musices. His pedagogical commitments also extended to church music, and from 1867 to 1871 he published a periodical called Zion in which contemporary German and Swedish music was juxtaposed with that from the 17^th and 18^th centuries. He also continued with the ongoing revision of Hæffner’s chorale book without, however, making any real impression on the field.

All these musical endeavours restricted Josephson’s own compositional output, although he did continue to compose solo songs. Much of his other compositions were works for various academic occasions, like conferment ceremonies, commemorations and jubilees, including music for the university’s 400^th anniversary in 1877, to which he set lyrics by poets Carl David af Wirsén and Viktor Rydberg.

Josephson was voted into the Kungliga Musikaliska akademien (Royal Academy of Music) in 1857. In 1874 he was made professor. With his sense of commitment and energy, he was a much loved celebrity in Uppsala and was grandly feted on his 50^th and 60^th birthdays. He died of pneumonia at the age of 62.

Works

The songs

Josephson is still represented on the repertoire, above all by some of his 153 solo songs, many of which are juvenile works, and pieces for men’s choir. The songs are well-written and rooted in the early 19^th century song tradition, having Adolf Fredrik Lindblad and Mendelssohn as their approximate point of emulation with their sensitive textual interpretations; subjectivism and the greater Schummanian sense of freedom leave no deep impressions on Josephson’s music. His songs formed part of the Swedish repertoire that Jenny Lind took out into the world, and sometimes evince a Swedish folk tone with their polska rhythms and melancholy minor tonality. The form is often strophic, or almost strophic, although it has to be said that Josephson was no stranger to dramatic climaxes either.

German poets like Heinrich Heine, Friedrich Rückert and Emanuel Geibel provided some of the textual material, Swedish poets Carl Wilhelm Böttiger and Johan Ludvig Runeberg as well. Many of the lyrics were, however, Josephson’s own and commonly embody nature-idealising Romantic themes and philosophical observation. Some of the songs, including ‘Stjärnklart’, ‘Serenad’ and ‘Längtan från havet’, enjoyed long-lived popularity.

Other works

Music for men’s choir is also typical for Josephson’s musical era, and some of these works, such as ‘Stjärnorna tindra re’n’ and ‘Vårliga vindar draga’ also retain repertory status. The cantata Islossningen from the 1840s for soloists, men’s choir and orchestra and to lyrics of his own penning is another occasionally performed work.

Josephson’s soli, choir and orchestra catalogue also includes Korsriddarne utanför Jerusalem and Quando corpus morietur (both premiered in 1851), Arion (composed for the 25^th anniversary of the Orphei Drängar in 1878) and the works he wrote as director musices: music for various conferment ceremonies, a funeral cantata for King Charles XV and the aforementioned music for the university’s jubilee in 1877. The composer’s confident mastery of orchestration, harmony and voicing is consistently evident in these works.

This is also true of Josephson’s only symphony, one of the few contemporary Swedish examples of this genre, which he composed during his sojourn in Leipzig. It has the classic four-movement form and as a whole is more lyrical than dramatically tense.

Josephson did not write much for the piano, but the works he did produce for this instrument are marked by his characteristically moderate romantic style and technical assuredness.

Anders Edling © 2016
trans. Neil Betteridge