Hugo Alfvén

Hugo Emil Alfvén (; 1 May 18728 May 1960) was a Swedish composer, conductor, violinist, and painter. Alfvén was one of Sweden’s principal composers. His “Swedish Rhapsody No. 1”, written when he was 31, is still one of the best-known pieces of Swedish music. After extensive European travels to develop his musical skills, Alfvén taught composition, before conducting choirs and orchestras. In 1954, he made the first Swedish classical stereo recordings. Hugo Alfvén’s extensive musical archive is held at Uppsala University, where he was music director for twenty-nine years. Career Violinist Alfvén was born in Stockholm, Sweden, and studied at the Royal College of Music (Kungliga Musikhögskolan) from 1887 to 1891 with the violin as his main instrument while receiving lessons from Lars Zetterquist. He also took private composition lessons from Johan Lindegren, a leading counterpoint expert. At the same time he played the violin at the Royal Opera in Stockholm 1890-1892. Conductor Starting in 1897, Alfvén travelled much of the next ten years in Europe. He studied violin technique in Brussels with César Thomson and learned conducting in Dresden with Hermann Ludwig Kutzschbach. In 1903-4, h