For Daniel Börtz, the fundamental general human questions are at the center. His big breakthrough came in 1991 when he collaborated with Ingmar Bergman in the operaThe backers. The following year, Konserthuset Stockholm dedicated its international composer festival to his music. Close to forty works were performed during the festival, which was a great success with the audience. Daniel Börtz's work was summed up nicely when, in November 2023, he was awarded the Royal The Musical Academy's Composer Award "for an outstanding work as a composer with a unique tonal language that invites both great emotions and existential questions, always connected to its contemporaries. In symphonies and solo concerts, in chamber music and vocal works and through the pioneering operas, Börtz combines modernism and tradition in a sonorous world of expression and beauty.”
Daniel Börtz belongs to a noted and artistically influential generation of composers (Sven-David Sandström, Anders Eliasson, Miklos Maros) who all studied under Ingvar Lidholm. He has composed more than 130 works, of which 15 are symphonies or as he calls them Sinfonior. The first from 1973 and the latest premiered in December 2023. The symphonies are often grand and sonorous. Bruckner and also Mahler are mentioned as predecessors and sources of inspiration.
During the 1990s, the melodic and singable gained more space in his music. A series of solo concerts received titles related to the vocal:Songs and dancesfor trumpet,Songs and shadowsfor violin,Songs and lightsfor clarinet andSongsfor piano.
With his six full-length operas, Daniel Börtz is also one of our greatest opera composers. AfterThe backers1991 followedMarie Antoinetteat the Folkoperan in 1998. It was a huge success and is today, after Karl-Birger Blomdahl's Aniara, the most performed modern Swedish opera. For Daniel Börtz, the fundamental existential questions are always at the center. In his operas, we find everything from ancient drama (Backanterna, Medea), complex historical personalities (Marie Antoinette, Magnus Gabriel, Goya), to today's issues of honor killings (Svall). This also applies in his Sinfonia 13 to texts from Kjell Espmark's book 'The Creation', where we encounter war, flight and persecution. In the music there is blackest darkness, violent aggressiveness and the gentlest tenderness. "A heartfelt attempt at an answer to the difficult state of the world and the sad imperfection of man," wrote Sofia Nyblom in her review.
Among Daniel Börtz's latest works areDouble concert for one(2020) composed for Malin Broman, who plays both violin and viola in the concert. "An incredibly beautiful and dramatic piece. Daniel's music is close to the song, it feels as if you are singing when you play," said Malin Broman before the premiere with the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra in 2023.
Daniel Börtz has received a wide range of awards: The Little and Great Christ Johnson Prize, Litteris et artibus, Rosenberg Prize, International Rostrum of Composers, Medal for the Promotion of Musical Arts, Ingvar Lidholm Prize, Royal The Music Academy's Composer Award and the Swedish Music Publishers' Honorary Award.
Goran Persson
