DANIEL BÖRTZ, born in 1943 in Osby in southern Sweden, studied violin for John Fernström in Lund and composition for Hilding Rosenberg. Once at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm he studied violin for Charles Barkel and Josef Grünfarb and composition for Karl-Birger Blomdahl (1962-65) and Ingvar Lidholm (1965-68). In the autumn of 1967 he studied electronic music for Gottfried Michael Koenig in Bilthoven, Holland. He was a deputy board member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music between 1969 and 1971, board member between 1971 and 1979, and secretary between 1972 and 1979. He was a teacher of orchestration at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm in the 1970s and 80s, and president of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music between 1998 and 2003.
Initially, Börtz adopted the “Polish” tonal field of the 1960s, while a work as early as Voces for orchestra, three female voices and tape (1966-68) also conveys a powerful social commitment. Although Börtz’s style went on to shift focus from tone and additive form to a more linear style of writing in an organic form language, his compositions are steeped from the beginning in a simplicity and austerity that bring out the lucidity of his emotionally charged declamations.
Despite the seminal chamber music works such as “String Quartet No.3” (1986) and the series of “Monologhi” for different solo instruments, it is the symphony orchestra and music drama that have emerged as Börtz's primary genres. Key works are also “Sånger om Döden” (“Songs about Death”) (1994), which recalls the epic song cycles of the late romantic period, and the oratorio “Hans namn var Orestes” (“His Name was Orestes”) (2001-02).
“Sinfonia 1” (1963) heralded a period of extensive and important symphonic creation, with a new approach to tonality and atonality, and what, for his contemporaries, were astonishing references to Bruckner. Of the nine symphonies that ensued, one - “Sinfonia 2” - is as short as an overture, and another, thrice as long - “Sinfonia 6” - has a soprano sing Shakespeare's sonnet 64 and create apocalyptic tonal atmospheres of disaster, war and death. “Sinfonia 7” (1986) extends a sweeping arch over a dramatic plot-line that hints at the patterns of the classical-romantic symphony. The solo concertos for trumpet, violin, clarinet, piano and recorder of the 1990s are seen by Börtz as an extension of the symphonic genre.
Börtz's waxing interest in melodics (exemplified in an oboe concerto from 1986), the human voice (“Sinfonia 8” with vocal parts to poems by Tomas Tranströmer, 1988) and the big philosophical questions culminated in a partnership with director Ingmar Bergman in the music drama “Backanterna” (“The Bacchae”) (Royal Opera, 1991). Intrinsic to this piece - as to Börtz's orchestral music - are the striking contrasts between violently powerful theatrical expression in the crowd scenes and disasters, and the chamber-like serenity of the intimate dialogue parts. The drama demanded of Börtz purity in the lines and a merciless clarity in the expletives. Börtz's other opera, “Marie Antoinette” (Folkoperan, 1998), which he wrote to a libretto by Claes Fellbom, uses a kind of filmic method with numerous flashbacks and flash-forwards to different times and places. The music switches rapidly between solo, dialogue, ensemble and crowd-scene in a multicoloured tonal idiom that embodies everything from condensed chamber music and borrowed tunes to the shocking musical eruption depicting the storming of the Bastille. A third opera, “Svall”, again to Fellbom’s libretto, will be produced during the 2005-06 season as a collaboration between the Royal Opera and Riksteatern. (Göran Bergendal, 2003, English translation: Neil Betteridge)
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