Carl Wilhelm Eugene Stenhammar was born in Stockholm on the 7th of February 1871, the youngest of five siblings. The family’s relatives were active within culture, and an interest in music was passed down through the generations. Wilhelm (often called Sten by family members) was the son of composer and architect Per Ulrik Stenhammar and Countess Louise Rudenschöld, and his brother was the architect Ernst Stenhammar. However his father, who was interested in music, died when Stenhammar was just five years old and therefore did not contribute to his son’s musical education to any great extent.
His upbringing was profoundly affected by the early loss of his father, and that his mother was deeply religious: both his mother and father were influenced by Pietism’s revival movement in the 1850s (a branch of Lutherism which emphasised individual piety). In an autobiographical sketch from 1918, Stenhammar recounts his childhood:
“So I grew up as an only, fatherless child, weak and sickly throughout my childhood, brought up by a mother who was endlessly loveable and loving, but was 43 years old when I was born, who squeezed and pampered me and at the same time filled the vessel of my child’s soul to the brim with feelings of sinfulness and guilt, fear of hell, and Jesus’ precious blood.”
After his father’s death, Stenhammar began to study piano with an elderly relative, and had already begun to compose, at the age of just 9 or 10, two piano sonatas and a large number of small songs.
Yorumlar