Olof Wilhelm Peterson-Berger ( 27 February 1867 – 3 December 1942) was a Swedish composer and music critic. As a composer, his main musical influences were Grieg, August Söderman and Wagner as well as Swedish folk idiom.
Peterson-Berger was born in Ullånger. He studied at the Stockholm Conservatory from 1886 to 1889 and then in Dresden for a year.
He is best known for three albums of national romantic piano pieces entitled Frösöblomster I, II and III (Flowers of Frösö), which include the often performed Vid Frösö kyrka (At Frösö Church) and Sommarsång (Summer Song). The sets, which were composed over a period of 18 years (1896–1914) and brought together afterwards as a collection have gained a reputation of representing a quintessential "Swedishness" in the romantic, nationalistic vein of their time. The most famous of the pieces, Sommarsång (Summer Song) recalls the warm, calm, harmonious and bright pre-summer evenings where the sun in the north almost never goes down; they were the great breakthrough for Wilhelm. Sommarsång is still known to most Swedes, even to people generally uninterested in music: the majority of young piano students in the Nordic countries have been taught this piece. His songs for vocal ensemble are also still regularly performed, and are part of the core repertoire of Swedish choirs.
His other works include the five symphonies – among them are no.2 Sunnanfärd and no.3 Same-Ätnam generally considered the best – as well as the operas Ran, Arnljot, Domedagsprofeterna ("The Doomsday Prophets") and Adils och Elisiv ("Adils and Elisiv"). His command of the larger forms, in both architecture and instrumentation, is disputed.
He was stage manager at the Stockholm Opera from 1908 to 1910. The opera Arnljot has nevertheless become something of a symbol for the province of Jämtland and is regularly performed there, as a "musical drama", at Arnljotlägden on Frösön, close to Peterson-Berger's former home, Sommarhagen. Domedagsprofeterna is the antithesis of Arnljot – a light festive musical comedy set in 17th-century Uppsala, while the saga Adils och Elisiv where Swedish ‘talsång’ (speechsong) attained its purest expression is a work extolling Peterson-Berger's belief in humanism and the goodness of man.
He also wrote about eighty songs, many of which set poems by Erik Axel Karlfeldt, for example Aspåkerspolska.
Symphony No.1 in B flat major, Baneret ("The Banner"), 1889–1903, revised 1932–1933 Movements: "När vi först drogo ut", "Mellan fedjerna", "Vid hjältebåren", "Mot nya vårar"
Symphony No.2 in E flat major, Sunnanfärd ("The Journey of Southerly Winds"), 1910 Movements: "Stiltje – Seglats", "Rosenstaden: Dionysoståget – I Eros tempel – Symposion", "Hemlängtan – För sunnanvind"
Symphony No.3 in F minor, Same Ätnam ("Lappland Symphony"), 1913–1915 Movements: "Forntidsbilder", "Vinterkväll", "Sommarnatt", "Framtidsdrömmar"
Symphony No.4 in A major, Holmia ("Stockholm"), 1929
Symphony No.5 in B minor, Solitudo ("Solitude"), 1932–1933
Orientalisk Dans ("Oriental Dance"), 1889–1890
Violin concerto in F sharp minor, 1915–1928
Romance in D minor for violin and orchestra, 1915
Törnrosasagan ("The Story of the Sleeping Beauty"), 1934
Symphony No.6, Hellas ("Greece"), 1935–1938 – unfinished
Lyckan ('The Happiness'), 1903
Domedagsprofeterna ('The Doomsday Prophets'), 1912–1917