Composer, Conductor, Pianist. One of Sweden's leading classical musicians, his music is notable for its austere strength and distinctive Nordic flavor. The Symphony No. 2 (1916), the Second Piano Concerto (1908), and the Serenade in F (1913) are probably his most representative works. Stenhammar was born in Stockholm. A musical prodigy, he studied piano in his native city and in Berlin, but was never formally trained in composition. He made his concert debut as a pianist in 1892 and eventually peformed over 1000 recitals throughout Sweden; in 1905 he recorded five piano rolls for the Welte-Mignon company. In 1897 he first appeared as a conductor leading the premiere of his overture "Excelsior!", and this activity came to dominate his career. As music director of the Gothenberg Orchestra (1906 to 1922) Stenhammar built that ensemble into one of the most adventurous in Northern Europe, famed for promoting new music from Scandinavian composers (Nielsen, Sibelius, Alfvén) as well as Mahler and Richard Strauss. In 1923 he was appointed conductor at the Royal Opera in Stockholm. Declining health forced him into retirement in 1925 and he died of a stroke at 56. Unlike his Swedish contemporary Alfvén, Stenhammar forged the "Nordic sound" of his music without making use of Swedish folk material, and this stayed consistent as his style progressed from late romanticism to a fondness for classical techniques, which anticipated the post-World War I Neoclassical movement. His six string quartets, dating from 1894 to 1916, provide the best overview of his development. Stenhammar was not prolific. He started out ambitiously enough, penning four piano sonatas as a teen and winning early success with his Piano Concerto No. 1 (1893) and the opera "Festival at Solhaug" (1893). But the failure of his second opera, "Tirfing" (1898), caused him to abandon the genre and reinforced his already self-critical temperament. He withdrew his Symphony No. 1 (1903) as unsatisfactory and produced his Second Piano Concerto to replace the First (which he considered outmoded) in his repertory. After 1906 his output was greatly reduced by the demands of concertizing and later by health issues; he abandoned writing a Third Symphony in 1919 and completed no new music after 1922. Other important compositions include the "Two Sentimental Romances" for violin and orchestra (1910), the cantatas "Ett Folk" (1905) and "Sangen" (1921), a Violin Sonata (1900), the piano suite "Late Summer" (1914), and some 60 art songs.