Life

The early years

Ludvig Norman was made fatherless at an early age. His father worked in a bookshop in Stockholm but died in 1840, leaving his family to subsist in the most meagre of circumstances. The young Ludvig proved something of a musical prodigy, and received help from several quarters to develop his talents. One important influence on him was the Josephson family, whose son, also called Ludvig, was a childhood friend, who shared Norman’s passion for the theatre. Ludvig Josephson’s sister Vilhelmina, a prominent pianist and teacher, undertook to teach Norman for free and even paid for his music theory studies under Adolf Fredrik Lindblad. Norman made great progress in his piano technique and began performing from the age of fourteen, often improvising on themes suggested by members of his audience. He had also started to write music and had his Four songs with pianoforte, composed at the age of 11, published in 1843.

Another two pianists in Stockholm had an impact on Norman’s development: the German Theodor Stein and Dutchman Jan van Boom (a student of Johann Nepomuk Hummel). However, the opportunities for obtaining a more structured musical training of the highest professional standard were greater abroad, and a number of benefactors, one of whom was Jenny Lind, subsidised his further study. It was decided that Norman would travel to the Leipzig Conservatory of Music, which attracted students from all over Europe, not least from the Nordic countries, with its top class teachers and ambitious curriculum. It was an overjoyed Norman who departed Stockholm on 1 May 1848.

In Leipzig, the sixteen year old Norman studied composition for Julius Rietz, counterpoint for Moritz Hauptmann, and piano technique for Ignaz Moscheles. He concluded his formal studies at the conservatory in 1850, but did not return to Sweden until February 1852. Norman’s musical horizons were radically broadened during these four years. The city possessed a rich music scene on which many of the best artists of the time appeared, and the famous Gewandhaus concerts made an indelible impression on his subsequent choice of programme and level of performance.

Taking on dilettantism

Professionally schooled and drilled in the disciplines of the musical craft, Norman returned to Stockholm. He was by now well-versed in the older and the more contemporary repertoires, and had become a fervent advocate of the radical music of his time. Inspired by the experiences of his conservatory years, he continued his attempts to raise the quality of the capital’s music scene to continental standards. He would have his work cut out for him. In May 1852, Norman explains to Ludvig Josephson that Sweden is not a ‘country of the arts’ and that he can not reconcile himself with the musical tastes of his fellow Stockholmers.

Ludvig Norman was made a member of Kungl. Musikaliska akademien (the Royal Swedish Academy of Music) first as an associé in 1853 and as a full member in 1857. (Musikverket)

Norman’s piano technique was, according to contemporary critics, spiritual, tasteful and free from superficial mannerisms. Particularly compelling was his ability to improvise. However, he ended up on a collision course with prevailing tastes when in 1853 he performed Schumann’s piano concerto at its Stockholm premiere.

As a critic, Norman wrote concert reviews for Aftonbladet and Ny tidning för musik. In an article from 1853, he calls for a shake-up of the Stockholm music scene: with better coordination of musical resources, he argued, it would be possible to produce major works for choir and orchestra that had never before been performed in the city, such as Bach’s St Matthew Passion. He also campaigned for subscription concerts with the Kungliga Hovkapellet (the Royal Court Orchestra) and for thoughtfully compiled programmes featuring works from different eras.

In 1859 Norman, Albert Rubenson and Frans Hedberg published Tidning för theater och musik, which pulled no punches about the lack of professionalism amongst composers, musicians and critics. One year previously, 1858, Norman had gained employment as a teacher in composition, orchestration and score-reading at the educational institution of the Kungliga Musikaliska akademien (Royal Swedish Academy of Music).

When the flamboyant hovkapellmästare (chief conductor of the Royal Court Orchestra) Jacopo Foroni died of cholera in 1858, the management of the Kungliga Teatern (the Royal Opera) turned its gaze abroad to seek his successor, deciding on Ignaz Lachner from Hamburg. However, he had trouble living up to the high expectations thrust upon him and returned to his homeland after only three years. Norman, now thirty years old, was offered the position, which he accepted in 1861. The ensuing 18 years that he worked as an opera conductor was a period of very high, uniform standard with productions that contemporary sources considered equal to anything that the leading European stages could achieve.

Besides operas, Norman also conducted highly appreciated concerts with the Kungliga Hovkapellet. From the spring of 1878, these performances evolved into regular so-called symphony concerts. In 1879, he resigned from the opera (while retaining the title of hovkapellmästare) to concentrate exclusively on conducting the concerts with the Musikföreningen (the Stockholm Music Society) and the popular symphony concerts, which continued long after his death.

Norman also tried to organise high quality chamber music concerts, and was a founding member of the Musikföreningen (1880). Five years later, the society celebrated the 200^th anniversary of the births of Bach and Handel with a concert conducted by Norman, by which time he was so poorly that he had to be helped down from the podium. Three weeks later he was dead.

‘The content was so rich, and the surface so impenetrable’

As a child, Norman was described as precocious, spirited and forthright. On his return from Leipzig, upon which he threw himself wholeheartedly into the Stockholm music scene, he appeared as something of a radical in many people’s eyes, as well as a pioneer and an inventive, influential edifier. At the same time, he was by nature a private man who shunned the barricades and who, in point of fact, often felt rather wounded by criticism.

In 1864 Ludvig Norman married the successful violinist Wilhelmina Neruda. While their first few years together were happy ones, in the autumn of 1868 she resumed her concert tours on the continent, and by 1870 their relationship was doomed beyond repair. The breakdown of his marriage took a heavy toll on Norman, who, plagued now by disease, grew increasingly morose.

1864 Norman married the violinist Wilhelmina Neruda. Their breakup in 1869 affected Norman deeply both physically and mentally.

In his official capacity, Norman enjoyed unparalleled praise; his own works, however, struggled to gain acceptance and were often received more with respect than with genuine enthusiasm. With Beethoven as his musical cynosure and strongly influenced by the Leipzig romantics, he developed his own style, gradually deepening his tonal language − and from the immediacy and relative transparency of his early years there crystallised music of a somewhat different nature − more introspective, artfully woven and thus more interpretatively challenging. A commonly quoted description of Norman’s music is Adolf Lindgren’s complaint that it was ‘too rambling, too knowing’.

Frans Hedberg wrote insightfully in his 1885 obituary of Norman that ‘one needed time to fathom his introverted nature [… of which] the content was so rich and the surface so impenetrable’. This description has obvious echoes in his music, with its almost total lack of catchiness or soulless panache. The dramatic opportunities of opera did not appeal to him, and he remained rather diffident towards the national currents with their distinct elements of ‘Nordic’ folk style.

Works

A word on the nature of the compositions

What characterises Norman as a composer is his linear and polyphonic mind, his assured sense of form and tendency to start developing motifs already in his expositions. He primarily composed multi-layered music, in which the continual transformation of the material − and its sound − becomes a fundamental method of form development. It would be fair to describe him as a ‘development composer’.  The melodic lines are not always striking on first hearing, and they tend to lack sharp edges even in the faster tempi. They do, however, have an inherent intensity and a developmental potential that Norman exploited to the full in his compositional style.

One distinguishing melodic phrase is the interval sequence second−third. While the harmonic scheme is rich in tone-colour, the music is fundamentally and predominantly diatonic and any alterations there (i.e. chromatic changes) are more a result of the different motions of the parts than an end in themselves. The orchestration is sensitive and varied, particularly in the woodwinds and brass, while slurs often give the rhythm a swinging, almost floaty feel, especially in the compound time signatures. Together, these qualities create a musical structure that is unequivocally Norman-esque, but that also shares some similarities with his almost exact contemporary, Johannes Brahms.

Many commentators have seen Norman as being overly influenced by Schumann, but it is an accusation that very much lacks grounds in his music. Norman had his own clear and consistent opinions on musical matters and was never an uncritical admirer of Schumann’s music, even if he was an active proponent of it.

Piano works and chamber music

Norman composed a large number of works for piano, including works for four hands, although none can be regarded as virtuosic. Many of them are, however, musically and technically intricate in a way that requires a different kind of technique than the showy runs and broken triads of passagework. Modest titles such as ‘Karaktärsstycken’ (Character Pieces), ‘Albumblad’ (Album Leaves) and ‘Pianostycken’ (Piano Pieces) conceal a well-conceived and musically substantial architecture that is without peer in Sweden at the time.

Norman’s fondness for chamber music is evident in his Musikaliska uppsatser och kritiker (1880−1885), where he writes that ‘private musical renderings for a circle of genuine music-lovers is becoming, once and for all, something more than anything the formalities of public life offer’. It is therefore not surprising that his works for a variety of chamber settings make up a significant portion of his production, both in scope and quality.

Five of Norman’s string quartets have been preserved, four of which earned him his status in the Swedish quartet literature. The first, Quartet in E major op. 20 (1855), is concise and accessible, although striking with its highly expressive slow movement and fiery E minor finale.

The facture of his Quartet in D minor op. 24 (1858) is more elaborate with, as is characteristic of Norman, motifs in the bookend movements that inherit something of their character from the compound time signatures. The Quartet in C major op. 42 (1871−83) is a sophisticated, tightly woven work in which the parts, despite this, move freely and easily. The complexity and high intensity sometimes give the quartet setting an almost orchestral feel that has a tendency here and there to break out of the body of sound. This phenomenon, deriving without doubt from Beethoven’s late quartets, can be seen in many of Norman’s chamber music pieces. An example of this is the vital, virile Quartet in A minor op. 65 (1884), of which the slow movement, typically, has become more widely known through its string orchestra renditions. Other exclusively string works are an octet in C major, a sextet in A major, a quintet in C minor and a suite in canon form for two violins.

In all his compositions for strings and piano, Norman treats the various parts as equals. The style of the early works is extroverted and self-assured, and the freshness and vitality of his writing is striking. His later works are of a different character; his tonal language is more intense and honed, yet at the same time more introverted, making it often harder to penetrate the somewhat arcane, as it were enclosed music, such as the grand and masterly B minor trio.

Vocal music

Norman’s production for voice and piano is dominated by five large collections of songs composed over four decades. The song cycle Waldlieder op. 31 (W.M. von Königswinter; 1867, tr. 1874) is one of Norman’s most inspired works. To Swedish lyrics he wrote, amongst other things, two collections: Twelve songs op. 49 (1877−78) and Songs op. 55 (1880). Despite the fact that Carl David af Wirsén’s poems in these songs can appear nowadays as pretentious and sentimental, Norman was still captivated by them and wrote several musically substantial songs, including the playful ‘Pagens visa’ and the furious ‘Ahasverus’.

Fredrika Stenhammar (1836-1880) was one of the most prominent soloists at the Stockholmsopera during the 1860s and 70s. Ludvig Norman dedicated his song cycle Waldenlieder to Fredrika.  

Norman composed two large collections for mixed choir, but it is his Motet op. 50 (1878) that has been most frequently played over the years. In his setting of Johan Olof Wallin’s poem ‘Jordens oro viker’ Norman has the eight parts divide themselves into two choirs, reconciling an older compositional technique with his own romantically toned harmonies and gestures.

Over the years, Norman wrote a large number of works for soloists, choir and orchestra, many of which were commissions for official ceremonies. Best known today is arguably Rosa rorans bonitatem (1876), Norman’s interpretation of the opening words of the mediaeval hagiography of Saint Bridget (Birgitta) of Sweden. The instrumentation is unusual but effective: mezzo-soprano, mixed choir and orchestra without violins. Four freestanding compositions of varying character make up Humleplockningen (1884) for soli, choir (both male and female) and orchestra to lyrics by K.A. Melin − two of which, ‘Kung Hakes död’ and ‘Adils gästabud’, are, in their masculine austerity, amongst the most powerful pieces Norman ever wrote. 

Orchestral works

Norman is our foremost composer of symphonies after Adolf Fredrik Lindblad and Franz Berwald, his main contribution to the Swedish orchestral literature comprising three symphonies and three overtures.

Symphony no. 1 in F major op. 22 (1858−59) was first performed in its entirety in 1875. With its fresh themes and virile gestures, it radiates an irrepressible energy. While there are discernible influences from the Leipzig romantics, the tonal idiom is at once personal and expressive. Of particular note are Norman’s unconstrained treatment of the orchestra and rather uncharacteristic rhythmic drive.

Symphony no. 2 in E-flat major op. 40 (1871; first performed 1873) was given an unusually kind reception, not least because of its melodic luxuriance and refined orchestration. The work showcases Norman’s driven technique of developing his motifs and having them continuously shifted in tone by the durchbrochene Arbeit of the orchestra. Yet the music seems to flow freely and naturally without ever becoming overburdened or unnecessarily convoluted.

Titel page and opening to the printed sheet music of Symphony no. 2 in E-flat major.

In Symphony no. 3 in D minor op. 58 (1881; first performed 1885), Norman’s tonal language is concentrated and the technique refined. The third movement, Allegretto, occupies a unique position in Norman’s output: with its subtle motifs, drastic rhythmic structure and spiritual orchestration, it gives the impression of a kind of benevolent humour, which he clearly possessed himself but which is only rarely manifested so clearly in his works.

Norman composed three mutually very different overtures, of which Uvertyr till Antonius och Cleopatra op. 57 was written for the play’s first Swedish staging in 1881. Even though it is in no way programme music, several of the key scenes in Shakespeare’s tragedy can be picked out without too much difficulty.

The only completed concert work in Norman’s production is the Concert Piece in F major op. 54 for piano and orchestra. Written in 1850, it was revised in 1875 and again in 1880 before being published in its final form in 1882.

When his colleague at the Kungliga Teatern, August Söderman, passed away in 1876, Norman wrote a funeral march in B-flat minor to his memory. With its gesticular expressiveness, sophisticated sound and harmonic charge, the three-part composition is suffused with profound and genuine grief. It was also performed at Norman’s own funeral on Easter Saturday 1885 in Ladugårdsland Church (Hedvig Eleonora) in Stockholm. 

Outlooks and insights

Success marked by illness

There can be no denying that Ludvig Norman was at the heart of the cultural scene of his time. As hovkapellmästare, concert arranger, musician, critic and composer he made many valuable − and in certain cases lasting − contributions to music; as a teacher, he raised many other composers, including many women. At the beginning of his career he was one of the radicals, but musical tastes changed and in his later years was considered by many a conservative.

A decade or so ago, the author of this article presented compelling evidence that Norman probably suffered from Tourette’s syndrome and its consequences. It proved a handicap for him on most social occasions and drove him further and further away from the limelight. In his growing isolation he became increasingly indifferent towards external influences and the reception of his own works. The separation from his wife Wilhelmina also affected his mental health, and there are indications that in the later part of his life he had serious bouts of depression that could be so bad that at one point he even made active preparations to take his own life.

A chequered reception history

Already during his lifetime, Norman’s music was, with a few exceptions, considered ‘erudite’ and not infrequently inaccessible. In the decade immediately after his death, there were admittedly a number of memorial concerts of his music, but over time it gradually disappeared from the concert halls to leave only one or two works remaining on the modern repertoire. There are many reasons for this, although his way of composing probably has much to answer for. His writing style can often mislead even the most musically trained eye and ear with its facture, invisible seams, ‘lofty’ melodic structure and complicated part tapestries that appear to sweep forth in an uninterrupted flow. It can therefore be hard for an individual musician in an ensemble to orientate herself within her own part and to identify her shifting roles in the musical flow. One effect of this is that performances of his works sometimes sound curiously blasé, which tends to make the music seem uninspired. It goes without saying that music of this nature suffers especially badly from today’s nonexistent interpretative tradition of Norman’s works.

Why did he write in this way? The music of his younger years possessed an immediacy that was gradually superseded by a more ambiguous approach to the expression of his musical ideas. Apart from the development of his art that came with his growing maturity, there can be another reason why Norman’s music often presents difficulties for musicians and audiences alike: his Tourette’s, which locked him into a daily struggle against failing impulse control and constant disturbing and disruptive motor and verbal tics. However, Norman often created music characterised by moderation, balance and harmony. In his memorial to Norman from 1886, Frans Hedberg wrote that ‘much of the beauty he engendered was surely rooted in the spiritual work through which he was compelled to try to redress the balance between his inner longing and his outer duties’.

Is it possible that the character of his music changed, in part, at the point where his musical capabilities came up against the tensions and frustrations caused by his illness and its ramifications? He spurned the world, and deepened his tonal language through his inner exile instead. Solidity and organic development seem not only a means in Norman’s composition but in many cases an ends as well. Key terms here are long-linedness and continuum, where the thematic work is focused on continual, organic evolution. And even if there is a certain strictness of expression, his pursuit of balance means that there are relatively few really sharp contours in his music. Contributing to this is his penchant for complicated reticulations of parts, densely packed with musical information per unit of time.

Norman’s later music embodies desperation, intense intimacy, a nostalgic yearning for happier times and, occasionally, fathomless resignation − but these are qualities that, paradoxically, are often concealed by a balanced tone and apparently lukewarm surface. At other times, the emotional pressure and its artistic realisation can threaten to burst through the body of sound. Attaining the musical vision indicated by his scores requires a larger body of sound than that prescribed. In both these cases, the works become somewhat cryptic and, not infrequently, misinterpreted.

To approach Norman’s music through his richly composed scores in order to re-create an interpretative tradition of his most prominent works poses a great challenge to the musicians of today.

Ludvig Norman. From Mårten Sondén's portrait collection. Pencil drawing. (Kungliga Biblioteket, Stockholm).

Tomas Löndahl © 2015
Trans. Neil Betteridge