There’s a bust of Berwald, only partially hewn from its stone, which gives a sense of the craggy character of the composer. It practically shouts frowning obstinacy and courage in the face of a dismissive society, though of course the latter is easier to achieve if you’re utterly convinced of the rightness of your beliefs; and it took that for the composer to survive through decades of neglect in his Swedish homeland. What’s striking is the music he produced after coming into his musical maturity: effervescent, expansive, even whimsical, and without any sign of either formal rigidity or posturing gloom. As an early Romantic, Berwald would have been less likely to place his most private emotions into the music he composed than a fin de siècle composer, but it is remarkable to see him going his own way without ever a reference to the indifference or hostility of the world. Once Berlioz and Beethoven were absorbed, each after his own, idiosyncratic fashion, Berwald proceeded forward, challenging the Swedish nation periodically to ignore his presence, but always steady in his course.

Of the six works on this disc, all but one are from his musical maturity. The odd man out is the Weber-like Konzertstück, a work of 1827 whose effectiveness as a solo vehicle can’t conceal its recourse to cliché. Of the remainder, three pieces could be loosely classified as tone poems, one is a rhapsody built around Swedish folk materials, and the fifth is an overture to one of the composer’s operas. All are prime Berwald: mercurial in tone, cleverly constructed, and evincing a melodic and harmonic character that is instantly identifiable. There’s more like this that has yet to appear on CD, just as good, and in a similar vein; which points to the curious state of recorded affairs for Berwald, over 200 years since his birth. Though regarded now as one of Sweden’s finest composers and among the finest anywhere during the 19th century, no one has attempted to collect and record all his short orchestral works.

According to the liner notes, the Gävle SO is among the oldest in Sweden, having been created in 1912. That’s as it may be; but here, they’re a well-blended second-rate ensemble marred by some non-unison entries, vague phrasing, and occasional scrappiness. Berwald isn’t overly kind to musicians: his lines expose the most virtuosic passages in ways that make covering next to impossible. Which is unfortunate, because Sakari is interpretatively on the mark after a fashion that Thomas Dausgaard, in his recent release of the first pair of Berwald symphonies (Chandos CHAN 10303), definitely was not. There’s no intent here to type the composer as a Mendelssohn manqué, but a clear understanding of how to allow this light-footed, sparkling, and occasionally explosive music to make its own unique impact.

Decent liner notes are included, and the engineering is good, if a bit lacking in crispness. The timings are on the short side, but at Naxos’s budget price and without any competition for several selections, this disc is self-recommending.

FANFARE: Barry Brenesal