Donation will make Hugo Alfvén’s music more accessible

Businessman and diplomat Lyndon Olson, who has roots in Dalarna himself, served as the US ambassador to Sweden between 1997 and 2021. During these years, he took an interest in Swedish research and visited many of Sweden's universities. His initial meeting with Uppsala University’s former Vice-Chancellor Bo Sundqvist – who initiated the founding of the American Friends of Uppsala University association and was its first chairperson – blossomed into a friendship over time. They shared many interests, including music. The donation, which will be used to prepare music manuscripts and publish selected works by Hugo Alfvén, is Lyndon Olson’s way of honouring his friend.

“He has done a lot for the University and for relations between our countries. I was not aware of Hugo Alfvén previously, but I wanted to do something meaningful for Sweden’s music culture and for the University. Now I know more and I’ve understood that there is a great need to make Alfvén’s work more accessible so that his music can reach a wider audience,” says Lyndon Olson.

Large collection in Uppsala University Library

Hugo Alfvén (1872–1960) was active as a composer, conductor, violinist and visual artist. He was Director musices at Uppsala University between 1910 and 1939 and conducted the University’s Royal Academic Orchestra and the choirs Orphei Drängar and Allmänna Sången. Most of his production in his own transcriptions – more than 200 compositions – was donated to Uppsala University Library at the end of his life. Hugo Alfvén’s large collection includes everything from sketches to clean scores, which makes it possible to follow his entire composition process.

Stefan Karpe, current Director musices at Uppsala University, will be responsible for the selection of works to make available. Through his involvement on the board of the Hugo Alfvén Foundation, he is well versed in the music. One challenge is that the rights to the music are currently spread across different publishers around the world, but that situation will change once they expire in 2030.

“The donation means a lot to us and to music in Sweden. Now we will be able to organise the printing of a fine hardback edition of Hugo Alfvén’s fantastic ballet Bergakungen (The Mountain King) which really deserves to be performed more and be readily available for conductors and musicians,” says Stefan Karpe.

The music in the first act of Bergakungen is partly based on folk music found in Hugo Alfvén’s recordings of folk music; these too are available in the University Library.

“Bergakungen was also one of the works that Alfvén himself was most satisfied with,” says Stefan Karpe.

Anneli Waara