Sven Scholander
| Sven Scholander | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
April 21, 1860 |
| Died | December 14, 1936 (aged 76) Djursholm, Sweden |
| Occupation | Singer, musician, composer, actor, sculptor, businessman |
| Spouse(s) | Charlotta Sofia Johanna von Bahr (1889–1932) |
Sven Scholander (1860–1936) was a Swedish singer, musician, composer and sculptor. His musical innovations led to a revival in Swedish lute playing while his solo performances of Carl Michael Bellman reintroduced the works in their original form.
Born into a large and musical family, Scholander was the son of Fredrik Wilhelm Scholander, an architect whose avocations included painting, poetry and singing to his own guitar accompaniment.
After studying music and art in Sweden and abroad, Sven Scholander began working in the late 1880s as an architectural sculptor and art teacher. In the former capacity he helped with the restoration of Bernard Foucquet’s Enleveringsgruppen (Abduction group), depicting Romulus and Hersilia and other instances of bride kidnapping in ancient mythology. The statues, on the southern façade of , were not cast in bronze until 1897, nearly two centuries after Foucquet had created the molds.
In addition to his artistic pursuits Scholander was a businessman, who opened a retail outlet for the Hasselblad Company in 1895, where he sold cameras and photographic equipment. He was also active in the publishing industry and in 1915 became the managing director of the AB Nordiska Musikförlaget.
Despite his involvement in art and business, Scholander always had a keen interest in music. While in his teens he began playing the guitar but soon switched to the lute, an instrument whose limitations he overcame by tuning the strings in the manner of a guitar. This so-called "lute guitar" or "Scholander-lute" offered greater flexibility and in Scholander's hands, wrote one critic, "resembled an entire orchestra."
Sven Scholander debuted as a lute-playing balladeer in 1891 and for the next four decades toured Scandinavia, Germany and other European countries with multilingual programs of songs and ballads. He had a vast repertoire but gave special emphasis to the works of Carl Michael Bellman. In fact, his concerts were often referred to as "Bellman evenings".
In the late 19th century Bellman's songs and epistles were commonly sung by male quartets, but Scholander, performing alone, brought the material to life with superb musicianship, precise diction, facial expressions and even sound effects. His dramatic interpretations, not unlike those of Bellman himself, influenced the Swedish troubadours who came after him: Birger Sjöberg, Evert Taube and countless others.
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