Life

Johan Erik Nordblom, the son of master tailor Eric Nordblom in Uppsala, appears to have begun his music education in singing, on flute and piano, and later engaged in organ playing. An attempt at a career as a merchant in Stockholm was disrupted in favour of music. In 1808, when Johann Christian Friedrich Hæffner came to Uppsala, Nordblom became his student, continuing until 1814. That same year he graduated from the educational institution of the Kungliga Musikaliska akademien (the Royal Swedish Academy of Music) with a degree as a music director and teacher, and then became director musices at the secondary school in Gävle. He stayed there until 1819, when he became a substitute for Hæffner in the same position at Uppsala University. In 1821−1835, Nordblom taught secondary and church song education at the academy’s educational institution. The hand-written ‘Sångöfningar’ (song exercises), dated 1825−1829 derive from this period. They appeared later in print under the title Sång-Schola (singing lessons).

In 1833 Nordblom was given the permanent job as director musices at Uppsala University, but was not paid a salary until 1835. The same year he founded a singing institute for women in order to more easily fill the female vocal parts in the mixed choir with which he continued the oratorio tradition from Hæffner’s days. He undertook works such as The Creation and The Seasons by Haydn, Mozart’s Requiem and Mendelssohn’s St Paul. In 1835, Nordblom took on the leadership of the Akademiska kapellet (the Royal Academic Orchestra) as well as its involvement in academic ceremonies such as the conferment of masters’ and doctors’ degrees, the 1843 twenty-five years’ jubilee of King Charles XIV John’s accession to the throne and the 1844 coronation of Oscar I.

In public concerts the orchestra assisted, among others, Norwegian composer and violinist Ole Bull, composer and violinist Andreas Randel and, on several occasions, the opera singer Jenny Lind. Nordblom also performed as a soloist in a piano concerto by Mendelssohn. In addition, he took part in the great uplift that musical life underwent during the 1840s by gathering students for choral practice in order for them to participate in academic music events, among other things. From the autumn of 1846 to March 1847 Nordblom received a leave of absence ‘for tending to personal matters’. This may have meant work with the singing institute he founded in Stockholm in 1846 and which he led until his death in 1848. Nordblom was honoured posthumously in Stockholm in 1849 with contributions from the Hovkapellet (the Royal Court Orchestra) and the Harmoniska sällskapet (the Harmonic Society).

Works

Nordblom studied composition with Hæffner who emphasised Haydn, Gluck and Mozart as role models. According to Hæffner, one should master harmony, the art of singing and declamation, polyphonic writing, the suitability of instruments and, ideally, one should play an instrument reasonably well. When Olof Åhlström’s royal charter for music printing ended in 1818, Vilhelm Fredrik Palmblad, based in Stockholm and Uppsala, could publish four books of solo songs by Nordblom in 1819−1826. These are linked to the 1790s aesthetic that is seen in Åhlström’s collections Skaldestycken satte i musik in which there are only strophic songs, and Musikaliskt tidsfördrif that also includes larger through-composed songs.

Solo songs and ballads

In Nordblom’s strophic ballads (visor) there appear shifts from uttermost simplicity to a certain refinement of the melody and the accompaniment. In most cases the melody is naturally cantabile and hardly complicated. Instrumental preludes and/or postludes exist as a rule. One example from Sång-Schola is the song ‘Vintersång’ (anonymous author) where melodic variations are found in strophes 2−4. The through-composed songs, which sometimes can take the form of recitative and aria, evoke a feeling of being piano vocal scores that cry out for an orchestra, for example in ‘Till min luta’ (Euphrosyne, pseudonym for Julia Nyberg) − but it ends with a strophic song that detracts the effect − or ‘Vårsång’ (Carl Fredric Dahlgren), which ends with an imitation of a French horn. This is not the only example of tone painting: in a survey of ten popular Swedish music books from the 1860s and 1870s, Nordblom is placed at the same level of popularity as Gunnar Wennerberg, Jacob Axel Josephson and Adolf Fredrik Lindblad, each represented by 10 or 11 melodies.

Choral music

Before Hæffner came to Uppsala, music for male quartet did not exist. On 27 February 1814, Per Daniel Amadeus Atterbom and Hæffner’s ‘Vikingasäten’ was sung and it is the first documented work in this genre that Nordblom took on. In 1818, on 1 December − the so-called ‘Oscar’s day’ − the song ‘Se dimman välver sig från fjällets topp’ with text by the royal homager Carl von Zeipel was performed.

Johan Erik Nordblom’s student, Johan Peter Cronhamn, considered him to be ‘counted […] among the foremost melodists and the most distinguished composers of songs that the Nordic region has produced’. The male trio ‘Fly ej Kärlek, från min hydda’ (anonymous author) is contrapuntal with a very melodic first tenor part. Nordblom composed chordal hunting songs, war songs, patriotic songs and drinking songs. His only collection for male choir, Fyra-stämmiga sånger för mans-röster for four parts, includes ‘Sång för Jämtlands fältjägare’, ‘Nordisk krigssång’, ‘Till Hans Maj:t Konungen’, ‘Baccanaliskt furioso’ and the most beloved of his works for male choir, ‘Fäderneslandet’, with the text ‘Härliga land …’. This song is mainly chordal with the simplest of harmonies. Several songs for voice and piano with lyrics by Atterbom can also be found in versions for male quartet, which was common in the so-called first Uppsala school, to which Nordblom belongs.

Jan Olof Rudén © 2015
Trans. Jill Ann Johnson