Hilding Hallnäs was a Swedish composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

. Hallnäs was married to the actress Gun Holmquist.

Life and career

Hallnäs's father had been a tenor and sang in choirs. After matriculation in his home town, he entered the Kungliga Musikhögskolan i Stockholm

Royal College of Music, Stockholm

The Royal College of Music, Stockholm is the oldest institution of higher education in music in Sweden, founded in 1771 as the conservatory of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music...

 in 1924, studying with Gustaf Hägg and Otto Olsson

Otto Olsson

Otto Olsson was a Swedish composer of classical music.Otto Olsson was one of the greatest organ virtuosos of his time. He studied organ with Lagergren and composition with Dente at the Royal Swedish Academy of Music, and then joined the faculty there, where he taught harmony and then organ...

, and graduated as an organist (1926) and music teacher (1928). He pursued organ studies in Paris with Alexandre Cellier

Alexandre Cellier

Alexandre Eugène Cellier was a French organist and composer.Cellier studied organ with Alexandre Guilmant until 1908. In 1908 he won the first prize for organ at the Conservatoire de Paris. Before that he also studied with Henri Dallier and Charles-Marie Widor...

, and studied composition in Leipzig with Hermann Grabner

Hermann Grabner

Hermann Grabner was an Austrian composer and music teacher.Grabner was born in Graz in 1886. He studied law at the University of Graz graduating in 1909. In parallel he studied music with Leopold Suchsland until 1910. He also played temporarily the viola for the Grazer Theatherorchester...

.

In 1933 Hallnäs became organist of the Johanneberg church in Gothenburg

Gothenburg

Gothenburg is the second-largest city in Sweden and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated on the west coast of Sweden, the city proper has a population of 519,399, with 549,839 in the urban area and total of 937,015 inhabitants in the metropolitan area...

, remaining until his retirement in 1968, teaching harmony at the Gothenburg Orchestral Society and becoming a leading light in the musical world of Gothenburg. He was active in the Levande Musik (Living Music) concert association and the Gothenburg Composers' Association. In 1974 he settled in Stockholm.

Prior to the Second World War Hallnäs was counted among neoclassicists such as Dag Wirén

Dag Wirén

Dag Ivar Wirén was a Swedish composer.-Life and career:Wirén was born at Striberg near Nora. His father had a roller blind factory, and there were various musical activities in the family home; he took piano lessons, and was a student at the Karolinska school in Örebro, and played the bass drum...

 and Lars-Erik Larsson

Lars-Erik Larsson

Lars-Erik Larsson was a notable Swedish composer of the 20th century.-Biography:Lars-Erik Vilner Larsson was born in Åkarp in 1908...

, but after he began using his own 12-tone system, first heard in his fourth symphony (1952-1955) Metamorfosi sinfonice.

Orchestral music

• Divertimento for orchestra (1937)
• Seven symphonies (including Sinfonietta pastorale (1944), Sinfonia notturna (1946), Small symphony for strings (1947), Metamorfose sinfonice (1952))
• Violin concerto (1945)
• Piano concerto (1956)
• Flute concertos (1957, 1962)
• En grekisk saga (1967 – a protest against the junta’s seizure of power)
• Viola concerto (1978)
• Cello concerto (1981-82)

Organ music

• Fantasi (1936)
• Fantasi and preludium with chorale (1957)
• Pietà (1962)
• Organ sonatas – No 1: De profundis (1965), No 2 (1977)
• Passionsmusik - Musica dolorosa (1968)

Chamber music

• Viola Sonata, Op. 19 (1943); dedicated to Sten Broman
• Legend for viola and piano (1945)
• String Quartet (1949)
• Spel för två (Jeux à deux) for clarinet and viola (1960)
• Violin Sonatas (1965), (1975)
• Partita Amabile and other works for guitar

Vocal

• Rapsodia (1963) for soprano and chamber orchestra
• Cantata solemnis (1971)
• Around 100 songs ,

External links

• Hilding Hallnäs at the Swedish Music Information Centre