Swedish Women Composers of the Nineteenth Century

Paula Gudmundson on the cover of her debut album (from the album’s Web page on Amazon.com)

This past November MSR Classics released the debut album of Minnesota-based flutist Paula Gudmundson. The full title of the album is Breaking Waves: Music by Swedish Women Composers. Anticipating that just about anyone encountering this title will associate it with Lars von Trier, Gudmundson’s notes for the accompanying booklet make it clear that “Breaking Waves” was the title of an orchestral composition by Swedish composer Helena Munktell (1852–1919).

Munktell’s music is not included on this album. However, the three composers whose works Gudmundson performs are her contemporaries: Laura Netzel (1839–1927), Elfrida Andrée (1841–1929), and Amanda Röntgen-Maier (1853–1894). The major works on the album are three-movement sonatas by Andrée and Röntgen-Maier. Netzel is represented by several short pieces, three of which are collected in her Opus 33 suite.

Gudmundson is accompanied at the piano by Tracy Lipke-Perry. However, the Netzel suite is the only piece composed for flute and piano. All of the other selections are based on transcriptions prepared by Carol Wincenc and Gudmundson herself.

The compositions themselves date from different periods of the nineteenth century, a period that saw prodigious changes between the early career of Ludwig van Beethoven and the established tone poems of Richard Strauss. It is therefore more than a little disappointing that there is an almost innocuous uniformity that pervades Gudmundson’s album. In the broader scope of music history, we know that there were several adventurous composers. (One of them probably had some of her works published under her brother’s name.) However, Breaking Waves leaves one with the impression that such adventurism never ventured as far north as Sweden.

The result is an album that offers some valuable data points for a more thorough account of musical practices in the nineteenth century without necessarily providing engaging or satisfying listening experiences.