Roman, Violin Concerto in D Minor

Two facts jump out if you look up Johan Helmich Roman (1694-1758): (1) he is known as the father of Swedish music, and (2) he is known as the Swedish Handel.

Those two things seem to be in conflict. Being the father of some particular country’s music implies that he created a national style. Why would someone who wrote music very much in the style of Handel earn that designation?

Many think of Mikhail Glinka, for example, as the father of Russian music because of his influence on the nationalist composers who followed him, in particular the Mighty Five.

Stephen Foster is sometimes designated the father of American music. Not to take anything away from Foster, I think this notion is clearly mistaken. It simplifies or ignores too much of America’s musical  history.

Considering Bedřich Smetana as the father of Czech music makes more sense to me. The Czechs had centuries of music with certain indigenous characteristics before Smetana came along. On the more learned side, they had composers, universities and scholars of music teaching international styles before Smetana. But Smetana took all of that and created music that set the Czechs apart from the Italian, Germanic, and French styles that were dominating Europe. 

When Professor Carol came down to give me an update on the plumber, I posed the question “How do you get to be the ‘father’ of a nation’s music?” and got a typical pithy response from her. It just means, she said, that historians can’t find anybody any earlier who did it any better. She added that the reputation has to be promoted and perpetuated by someone or something—a person, a publisher, or some legendary status. In the case of Glinka, for example, that was his long-lived devotée and sister Liudmilla Shestakova.

Okay, then. What can we say about Johan Roman and Swedish music? Roman was a composer and teacher who became conductor of the Royal Court orchestra, and he was the first Swedish composer to gain international recognition. About 400 works are attributed to him. No doubt he made a significant contribution to the musical life of Sweden at the time. And no other Swedish composer did it better earlier.

Yes, clearly he wrote in the style of his contemporary, Handel, who perhaps more than any other composer exemplified international musical style of the time.