Herbert Sandberg Conducts Grieg’s Holberg Suite on DGG

Herbert Sandberg (1902-1966) was cut from the same cloth as many of his more famous colleagues – Bruno Walter and Otto Klemperer, among others – diligently learning his trade first as répétiteur and then assistant conductor, shepherding hundreds of operatic productions to fruition. If he never attained their fame, he was without doubt an indispensable part of Swedish musical life for nearly a half century. A tireless chief conductor, he programmed not only audience favorites, but more challenging fare, championing contemporary composers, both from Sweden and abroad. Indeed, Sandberg appears to have had a most discerning ear, recognizing the greatness of works on which the ink had just dried, including Shostakovich’s Katerina Ismaïlova and Britten’s Peter Grimes.

He translated numerous librettos into Swedish, texts still in use at Sweden’s opera houses to this day. He led orchestral concerts, wrote film scores and incidental music, and was an expert orchestrator and arranger. In short, he was the complete musician. Hopefully, more recordings of his remarkable talent will emerge in forthcoming years.

Searching various online retailers (jpc.de, prestomusic.com, arkivmusic.com) for Herbert Sandberg titles on CD one finds a wealth of operatic broadcasts, largely on semi-bootleg labels like Archipel, Opera d’Oro and Bluebell, though there are also issues on Caprice and Musikpro- duktion Dabringhaus und Grimm (MDG). Searches of web-based discographic archives (charm. rhul.ac.uk and classical-discography.org) return similar results.

Sandberg was a man of the theatre through and through, though Europe’s radio archives likely harbor other recordings of him in the symphonic repertoire (e.g. Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk, where he guest conducted on several occasions). In the aforementioned MDG title ( 642 1508-2), he accompanies violinist Gerhard Taschner in a 6 January 1956 broad- cast of Sibelius’ Violin Concerto in D minor Op. 47 with the Kölner Rundfunk-Sinfonie-Orchester. Aside from that, the only non-operatic work in his discography is a little-known 1955 DGG recording of Grieg’s Holberg Suite Op. 40, made with the RIAS Symphonie-Orchester Berlin in the rich acoustics of Jesus-Christus Kirche on 18 January 1955 ( LPE 17046, 10” LP).

What circumstances led to this “one-off” recording are now unknown, but both the man and the sole symphonic disc he made are well worth exploring.

Sandberg was born on 26 February 1902 in Breslau (now Wrocław, Poland), birthplace 40 years before that of conductor Walter Damrosch (1862-1950). Other notable musicians from the historic capital of Silesia include conductor, baritone and pianist George Henschel (1850-1934), conductor Leopold Reichwein (1878-1945) and most famous of all, con- ductor Otto Klemperer (1885-1973). There he studied with, and at age just 17, became répétiteur to Julius Prüwer, Kapellmeister of the Stadttheater Wrocław. Indeed, like so many conductors of that era, Sandberg’s “handwerk” began in the opera house; he assisted Prüwer in the German premiere of Boris Godunov. After honing his craft there for 5 years, Sandberg moved to Berlin, now training under Leo Blech as kapellmeister and assistant conductor at the Theater des Westens (also known as the Berlin Volksoper). [Much later, in 1939, Sandberg would marry Blech’s daughter Lisel.] Staying in the German capitol, he next worked at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, assistant to Bruno Walter. By 1926 he was ready, and was offered a contract as conductor at the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm, which became his home and musical base for the remainder of his life.

His achievements there were extraordinary by any measure. Over a 40-years span, from 1926-1965, he led 1,862 performances of 122 separate opera productions, encom- passing not only the entire standard reper- toire (only Tosca and Faust are missing), but also major new works for which there was no performing tradition whatsoever. Indeed, he was a champion of contemporary com- posers, both those of his adopted Swedish homeland, and those from abroad. In this he proved himself to be remarkably discerning, tackling large-scale works that today are considered masterpieces, but which at the time were of uncertain promise.

Note: The 1,862 performances cited above omit 287 other appearances at the Swedish Opera conducting ballet and other musical evenings. Among the former he conducted Stravinsky’s L’Oiseau de feu, Pulcinel- la and Petrouchka, Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, Tchaikovsky’s The Sleeping Beauty, Kurt Atterberg’s Per Svinaherde (Per the Swineherd), Knudåge Riisager’s Månerenen (Moon Reindeer), Casella’s Scarlattiana, Bizet’s Symphony in C (choreography by Balanchine), Delibes’ Coppélia, and Chopin’s Les Sylphides (in the orchestration by Moritz Köhler and Alexander Glazunov).

Sandberg also composed – there are works for orchestra, lieder, and four film scores (credited as composer on Blod och eld (Blood and Fire, 1945) and Det vack- raste på jorden (The Most Beautiful on Earth, 1947) and with musical supervision on Giftas (Getting Married; also re-titled in English as Of Love and Lust, 1955), and Ett dockhem (A Doll’s House, 1956)). There are two other noteworthy entries in his list of works, the first being the incidental music he wrote for Ragner Hyltén-Cavallius’ 1940 Tummeliten, a fairytale-like stage work for children with songs and dances in three acts. Hyltén-Cavallius (1885-1970) served as Stage Director of the Swedish Opera for many years and was also active in film as both a screenwriter (Gösta Berlings Saga, or The Saga of Gosta Berling from 1924, with Greta Garbo) and director (Äktenskapsleken or The Marriage Game from 1935). Tummel- iten proved a brief sensation and enjoyed some 35 performances during the war years 1940-1942. The second work was a ballet in one act entitled Medea. Inspired by Eurip- ides’ tragedy of Greek Legend, it featured Sandberg’s orchestration of piano works by Bartók’s (13 selections drawn from Mikrokos- mos, the Allegro Barbaro, 14 Bagatelles, the Suite Op. 14 and the 4 Dirges). With chore- ography by Birgit Cullberg and set designs by Alvar Grandstrom, Sandberg led not only the world premiere at the Riksteatern in Gävle on 31 October 1950, but also the first American performance at the City Center of Music and Drama by the New York City Ballet on 26 No- vember 1958.

Outside of music, Sandberg’s principal hobbies were mathematics and Latin and he would spend many enjoyable hours studying both in great depth. Although of Jewish faith, he was not a religious man and seems to have kept his own counsel regarding spiritu- al matters. [Correspondence with Irene Fryk- holm, the conductor’s daughter.]

In 1956 Sandberg stepped down from the Royal Swedish Opera. Sandberg’s first ap- pearance at the Swedish Opera was made on 10 November 1926, leading a production of Tannhäuser. Nearly 45 years later – on 31 January 1961 – he bid farewell to that house, also with Tannhäuser. He remained very active until the end, even agreeing to head the Malmö Stadsteater for a brief period (broad- cast performances survive). He died young for a conductor – at age 63 – passing away in Danderyd, Sweden, on 7 January 1966.

For the yellow label he accompanied on record such eminent singers as sopranos Rita Streich and Stefania Woytowicz, tenors Hans Hopf and Cornelis van Dijk, and baritone Josef Metternich. However, this reading of Grieg’s Holberg Suite Op. 40 remains Sandberg’s only commercial orchestral recording on any label.

Rudolf A. Bruil, at his extraordinary website SoundFountain.com, provides a fascinating history of the RIAS Symphony (Sympho- nie-Orchester) Berlin (click here).

In July 1953 the orchestra, which since its founding in 1946, had been underwritten by the US government as part of Germany’s post-war reconstruction, had its funding cut, leading to the exodus not only of principal conductor Ferenc Fricsay, but also of several players; the musicians are now paid strictly by the hour for rehearsals and performances. Thus, to make ends meet, the RIAS Sympho- nie-Orchester begins an ambitious recording schedule, principally with Deutsche Gram- mophon, but also with other labels such as Telefunken and Remington. Stepping into the breach were a parade of guest conductors including Wolfgang Sawallisch, Manuel Rosenthal, George Sebastian, Georg Ludwig Jochum, Otto Matzerath, Jussi Jalas (born Armas Jussi Veikko Blomstedt, he changed his name to Jussi Jalas in 1943), Perlea, Anatole Fistoulari, Leopold Ludwig, H. Arthur Brown, Karl Rucht, Gerhard Pflüger, Eugene Szenkar, Karl Böhm, Georg Solti and Otto Klemperer, Leo Blech, Hermann Abendroth, Eugene Ormandy, Sergiu Celibidache, Fritz Lehmann, and Herbert Sandberg.

Though first and foremost an opera con- ductor, Sandberg did conduct orchestral concerts. For example, in Sweden he led the Stockholm Philharmonic on 10 occasions, the first on 15 April 1939 (the program: Weber’s Overture to Oberon, Beethoven’s Violin Con- certo with soloist Endre Wolf and Dvorák’s Symphony No. 9 “From the New World”) and the last on 21 March 1956 (the program: Hindemith’s Sinfonia Serena, the world premiere of Moses Pergament’s Cello Concerto with soloist Gaspar Cassadó, and Reger’s Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart).

Sandberg and the RIAS Symphonie-Orchester Berlin capture both the austerity and delicacy of Grieg’s evocative score with playing that is vibrant, buoyant, and ever songful.

It was first resurrected on disc in 1991 via an unlikely but intrepid 2CD release by Koch International / Schwann ( CD 311 162 K1) entitled “World Famous Conductors from Silesia) and then subse- quently in 2003 by VMS/Zappel Music ( VMS 116), now under the title “Famous Historic Conductors from Germany”.

An interesting post-script: Sandberg’s sister was the noted photographer Eva Sandberg Xiao (1911-2001) who lived in the Soviet Union for over a decade before marrying Chinese communist poet Xiao San (1896-1983), the first biographer of Mao Zedong. The two lived in Yan’an, center of the People’s Revolution. Eva Sandberg would spend the remainder of her long life in China, sometimes under extremely perilous circumstances, including 7 years imprisoned in solitary confinement during the Cultural Revolution. Her Wikipedia entry is here. Even more interesting is a WikiTalk page on her life, found here. Brother and sister were in regular contact throughout their lives, sometimes meeting in Sweden and East Germany. Sandberg’s wife Lisel died in 2006 at the age of 93. They are survived by a daughter, Irene Frykholm (1941- ), who for many years worked as an Assistant Stage Director at the Swedish Opera. Herbert Sandberg is buried at Danderyd, Sweden.

More photos and information available in the Winter 2022 Issue