Franz Berwald
Source: Web (interlude.hk)
Music • Historical Archive • 🇸🇪 Sweden • 2 views

Franz Berwald 🇸🇪

Franz Adolf Berwald (Known as "Berwald")
Foremost 19th-Century Swedish Symphonist, Violinist, Orthopedic Pioneer, Sawmill Director
Born 1796-07-23 🇸🇪 Stockholm, Sweden
Passed Away 1868-04-03 Stockholm, Sweden
Lifespan 71 years old
2 views
Notice / Correction
"An artist must compose for the ears of the future when the ears of his contemporaries are stuffed with cotton."

Archival Overview

Foremost Swedish symphonist of the 19th century whose visionary orchestral masterpieces, including 'Sinfonie singulière', went unappreciated in his lifetime while he ran an orthopedic clinic and glassworks.

Biographical Record

Franz Adolf Berwald was born on July 23, 1796, in Stockholm into four generations of Swedish royal court musicians. Playing violin in the Royal Court Orchestra from age sixteen, his radical harmonic modulations and eccentric formal structures met with cold incomprehension in conservative Stockholm.

Unable to earn a living through music, Berwald moved to Berlin, founding an innovative orthopedic and physiotherapy clinic in 1835, and later managed a glass factory and sawmill in northern Sweden. Between 1842 and 1845, he composed his four extraordinary symphonies—most famously Sinfonie singulière (1845)—marked by Beethovenian drive, sparkling woodwind wit, and visionary Nordic romanticism. Belatedly appointed composition professor at the Royal Conservatory shortly before his death, he is now recognized as Sweden's greatest romantic symphonist.

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Final Resting Place

Perpetual Memorial
Norra begravningsplatsen (Northern Cemetery)
Solna, Sweden
GPS: 59.3616, 18.0282
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