Carl-Olof Anderberg

Born: 13 March 1914 in Stockholm, Sweden Died: 4 January 1972 in Malmö, Sweden Carl-Olof Anderberg was a Malmö based composer, pianist and conductor. During the period 1936–8 he studied composition in Stockholm, Copenhagen, Paris and London, and later in Salzburg and Vienna. He was a piano pupil of Olof Wibergh in Stockholm and studied conducting with Bernhard Paumgartner, Bruno Walter and Felix Weingartner at the Mozarteum, Salzburg. In 1934 he made his début as pianist and composer in Malmö with the later discarded Concertino for piano and chamber orchestra. He was a conductor at the theatre Hippodromen in Malmö during two periods, 1939-42 and 1949-50. He became one of the most dynamic musical personalities in the south of Sweden of the 1940s. In 1946 he founded the Malmö Chamber Orchestra, which he directed until 1950. From 1956 he was active with electronic works, composed in his own music studio, “FEM“, for phonetics (Sw. fonetik), electronics and music, in Malmö. Thereafter he lived as a freelance composer in Malmö, latterly spending much time in Cologne and Vienna; he sometimes appeared as pianist or conductor, particularly with the Malmö Ars Nova in the 1960s. Anderberg’s music of the 1930s and 40s showed French influence, but later he went through a 12-note serial period, stimulated by his profound analyses of Arnold Schoenberg’s piano music. In this way he integrated new techniques into an individual style, solidly craftsmanlike in the orchestral works and instrumentally brilliant in the chamber music. Many of his works were suggested by literature or by contemporary events, the latter particularly accented in his later works.