JSV 45
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Svendsen, Johan

Sigurd Slembe, op. 8

Sigurd Slembe, Op. 8

([de]: Sigurd Slembe. Symphonische Einleitung zu Bjørnstjerne Bjørnsons gleichnamigem Drama)

JSV 45

 

Dedicatee: Dr. A. Keil

Sigurd Slembe, Op. 8, was Johan Svendsen’s first work with a ‘programme’, although the title alone betrays its programmatic roots. This was to be the work that firmly identified him as a modernist in the eyes of his contemporaries. One critic wrote that Svendsen was ‘still in the midst of rawest fermentation’. The first ideas for the work probably materialized during a stay in Paris from February 1868 to March 1870. The French capital provided Svendsen with radical impulses in many areas and may have inspired him to abandon classical forms such as symphony, chamber music and concerto in Op. 8.

Both Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson’s (1832–1910) ideas behind Sigurd Slembe and the actual text to the drama must also have been a great inspiration to Svendsen. The actual historic Sigurd Slembe (1100–1139) was one of King Magnus Barefoot’s sons and one of several heirs to the throne in a time of civil war. Bjørnson’s play Sigurd Slembe was published in 1862, inspired by Snorri Sturluson (1178–1241) and the work of historian Peter Andreas Munch (1810–1863). It is a dramatic trilogy consisting of  Sigurd’s First Flight, Sigurd’s Second Flight and Sigurd’s Homecoming.

There is no doubt as to where Edvard Grieg stood in the discussion about modernity that was repeatedly incited by Sigurd Slembe. In a letter to August Winding following the concert in October 1872 in Christiania, where Svendsen himself directed the work, Grieg wrote: ‘But as mentioned, there are forces at work here, and rather something demonic when these forces keep a tight rein, than the German sickliness that entirely lacks the ability for powerful progress.

Composition: 4 Nov. 1871.

Leipzig

Instrumentation:

2 fl., 2 ob., 2 cl., 2 fg., 4 cor., 2 tr., 3 trb., tb. timp., str.

Allegro moderato

Metre: 4/4

Key: C major

Extent: ca. 10 min.

Reproduction (edition or facsimile):
Edited score (JSV)  

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File title:

Sigurd Slembe, op. 8

File publication:

Norsk Musikkarv (NM)
Institutt for musikkvitenskap
Postboks 1017
Blindern 0315
Oslo
WWW: http://www.musikkarven.no/
E-mail: mailto://bjar-eng@online.no

Bjarte Engeset (Editor in Chief), Editorial Committee: Morten Christophersen, Bjarte Engeset, Jørn Fossheim, Audun Sannes Jonassen, Jørgen Langdalen, Øyvind Norheim


Last changed 2022-02-19 by bjarte