Wilhelm Stenhammar is a now obscure but very talented Swedish composer who lived in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A child prodigy who initially composed pieces for the piano, his musical aspirations were transformed by the influence of other Scandinavian composers such as Jean Sibelius. Sibelius’s example led him to overhaul his musical style, eventually culminating in his Symphony No. 2 in G-minor, posted below:
Symphony No. 2 has a strength and energy that, for me at least, represents what is best in classical music. Too often the uninformed characterize the genre as being slow and boring, when in reality there are numerous classical pieces as vigorous as any blockbuster film score. (Hey, where do you think John Williams, Hans Zimmer, and other soundtrack composers learned their tricks from?)
Beyond his work as a composer, he was the music director of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Sweden’s first professional orchestra. In keeping with his choice of a “Nordic” music style, he emphasized performances of other Scandinavian composers.
Montaigne's Tower 