Karl-Birger Blomdahl

Karl-Birger Blomdahl (1916–1968), a Swedish composer, professor of composition, head of the musical editor’s office of the Swedish Radio. Blomdahl was the informal leader of the so-called Monday Group, representing modernism in the Swedish music of the 1950s. His opera Aniara and first electrophonic pieces met with considerable interest. As the head of a radio editor’s office he cooperated on the establishment of the Electronic Music Studio (EMS) and ensured a proper place of contemporary music in radio emissions. The meeting with Blomdahl’s I Speglarnas Sal in the ISCM World Music Days in Oslo in 1953 was for Nordheim equally important and decisive as his meeting with the Mahler’s symphony four years earlier. Blomdahl ordered with Nordheim a piece for the Swedish radio. The composer worked from 1965 on a monumental piece for 250 performers and saw in this order the chance to have it performed. Blomdahl accepted the ready music instead of the ordered piece with the fee unchanged. Eco for solo soprano, children and mixed choir and the orchestra had its world premiere during the Nordic Music Days in Stockholm in 1968 and occurred to be Nordheim’s response to I speglarnas sal. For this work Nordheim received the prize of the Nordic Council.