Ingvar Lidholm

Ingvar Lidholm

Ingvar Natanael Lidholm (born 24 February 1921) is a Swedish composer.

Ingvar Lidholm was born in Jönköping. He was a pupil of Hilding Rosenberg from 1943 to 1945, becoming a viola player with the Royal Swedish Opera Orchestra. Having been awarded the Jenny Lind Fellowship for 1946–7, he travelled to France, Switzerland and Italy. He was musical director of the "Örebro Orchestral Society" from 1947 to 1956. "Mutanza" was written in 1959 for the society.

Lidholm was a member of Karl-Birger Blomdahl's controversial radical "Monday Group". His early style was influenced by Igor Stravinsky, Béla Bartók and Paul Hindemith. Later he became atonal, and sometimes serial. He taught composition at the Kungliga Musikhögskolan i Stockholm (Royal Swedish Music College) from 1956 to 1965. He wrote "Poesis" (1963) for the 50th anniversary of the Stockholm Philharmonic, which was a far more radical piece than they had expected. This work was his last to use the 12-tone serial technique. After that, he turned away from this complex style and adopted a simpler, hymn-like approach. He was still experimenting with electronic music in 1971. In the same year he composed "Stamp music". This celebrated a stamp issue which honored the 200th anniversary of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music.

In 1993 he won the Rolf Schock Prize. The opera "Ett drömspel" (1992) is based on Strindberg's "A Dream Play". He has written many orchestral works, but his main strength is in choral works. Between "Poesis" and "Greetings from an old World" there was a gap when he wrote no orchestral music. He quotes from a song by Heinrich Isaac in "Greetings from an old World". Similarly, in "Kontakion" he uses Russian Orthodox choral music. Somewhat like Benjamin Britten his music is a kind of bridge between early music, and the avant-garde.

He plays the violin and viola, and has been a conductor and has served on musical juries.

His notable students include Edward Applebaum and Anders Eliasson.