Wilhelm Stenhammar

Carl Wilhelm Eugen Stenhammar (February 7, 1871 – November 20, 1927) was a Swedish composer, conductor and pianist.

[1] He subsequently sought to emancipate himself and write in a more "Nordic" style, looking to Carl Nielsen and Jean Sibelius for guidance.

[2] In autumn of 1892, Stenhammar moved to Berlin for seven months to study with Heinrich Barth, where he devoted his time to rigorous piano practice and composition.

Barth was satisfied with Stenhammar's performances and gave him increasingly technically challenging pieces to practice, such as the Variations on a Theme of Paganini by Johannes Brahms,[3] a composer he admired.

[4] From 1906 to 1922 Stenhammar was Artistic Director and chief conductor of the Gothenburg Symphony, the first full-time professional orchestra in Sweden.

In 1909, he briefly held the position of director of music at Uppsala University, where he was succeeded the following year by Hugo Alfvén.

Silvertrust opines that Stenhammar's six string quartets are the most important written between those of Johannes Brahms and Béla Bartók.

Whether or not this is so, there is no denying that Stenhammar's quartets represent a very important development during the twenty-five years he was writing chamber music.

Pianists who venture into the realm of the string quartet often wind up writing compositions that sound as though they were composed at, and are perhaps better played on, the piano.