Crusell the clarinettist

Today marks 250 years since the birth of Bernhard Henrik Crusell, the Finnish-Swedish clarinettist and composer whose travel journals and autobiographical fragments give a rare glimpse into the life of a Scandinavian musician moving through Europe at the dawn of the Romantic era. Although best remembered for his three clarinet concertos and chamber works, Crusell also left behind a small but valuable body of personal writings.

Crusell was born on 15 October 1775 in the coastal town of Uusikaupunki, then part of the Swedish kingdom. Aged 8, the family moved to Perttula, a village in the Nurmijärvi region some 20 miles north of Helsinki. In 1788, when he was 13, a family friend, aware of the his natural musical ability, took him to see Major O. Wallenstjerna at Sveaborg, a Swedish fortress. Wallenstjerna, impressed with Crusell’s playing, recruited him as a volunteer member of the Sveaborg military band and gave him a place to live with his own family. Crusell received an education at Sveaborg and excelled in music and languages. In 1791, when Wallenstjerna transferred to Stockholm, Crusell went with him. There, he became a professional musician and eventually principal clarinettist of the Royal Court Orchestra.

In 1801 Crusell married Anna Krougius, the daughter of a Stockholm merchant. They had one son, Adolf. Crusell travelled widely, studying in Berlin, Leipzig and Paris, and built a reputation as the leading clarinet virtuoso of northern Europe. He also worked as a translator, adapting French opera libretti into Swedish for the Royal Theatre. His reputation rests above all on his compositions for the clarinet: three concertos and several chamber works. As a performer he was admired throughout northern Europe, not only for the elegance of his tone but also for his command of the instrument at a time when clarinet design was still evolving. In later life his health declined, though he continued to compose and perform until the mid-1830s. He died in Stockholm in 1838. Further information is available from Wikipedia, Swedish Musical Heritage, and Interlude.

Crusell is known to have kept travel diaries during his journeys in 1798-1799, 1803, and 1822. They combine everyday notes of journeys with reflections on the music and society he encountered, providing an unusually personal commentary from a professional instrumentalist of the period. These writings remained in manuscript until 1977, when the Royal Swedish Academy of Music published Bernhard Crusell: Dagböcker, studier, verkförteckning m.m. as part of its scholarly series. More than thirty years later, in 2010, the Finnish Literature Society issued the first Finnish translation of the travel diaries under the title Keski-Euroopan matkapäiväkirjat 1803-1822. No English edition has ever appeared, and references in English-language studies rely on these Swedish and Finnish publications. Here are just a couple of translated extracts I found embedded in the biographical links above.

1798, Berlin

‘The city [Berlin]astonishes me with its military precision and its glittering society. But it is the music which most excites me - here, clarinet playing is not a curiosity, it is a profession and an art.’ 

June-July 1822

‘Felix [Mendelssohn]is a most beautiful child, and he is also said to be very unassuming. In his compositions one immediately recognises the signs of genius and good training . . . People here think he may even become another Mozart.’