Moses Pergament

Moses Pergament (21 September 1893 – 5 March 1977) was a Finnish-Swedish composer, conductor, and music critic. He is largely seen as one of the most influential figures in the first generation of Swedish modernism.

Education
Pergament studied music at various locations across Europe during his youth, including at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory between 1908 and 1912 under Nikolai Rimski-Korsakov and Leopold Auer. He returned to Finland briefly after the outbreak of WWI, studying at the University of Helsinki, and later moved to Sweden and studied at the University of Stockholm in 1919, gaining Swedish citizenship a year prior. He studied at the Stern Conservatory of Berlin from 1921 to 1923.

Career
He was a composer of primarily classical music, having written four string quarters, a violin concerto, two piano concertos, and the choral symphony Den judiska sången, as well as various a cappella choir compositions. He made his compositional debut in Finland in 1914. He has also composed compositions for various Swedish films, one of them being Barabbas in 1953.

Pergament conducted both orchestras and choirs during his time as a composer. He was a music critic at the Svenska Dagbladet in 1923. In the 1940s, the Lund University choir would perform some of his a capella compositions during a tour in the United States.

His symphony, Den judiska sången, was a piece that became famous among European Jewry due to its basis in the ongoing Holocaust in Europe at the time. The composition, along with others that he would write, held many influences of Yiddish language and culture.

In 1952, he became a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. In 1967, he received the Medaljen för tonkonstens främjande.

Personal life
He married Ilse Maria Kutleb in 1923; she died in 1960. He died in Stockholm in 1977 at the age of 83.

He is the brother of Finnish composer Simon Parmet as well as uncle to Finnish pianist Erna Tauro through his brother Isak.

Selected works

 * Duo for violin and cello op. 28 (1917)
 * Sonata for violin and piano (1920)
 * Krelantems och Eldeling, ballet music for orchestra (1921)
 * String Quartet No. 1 (1922)
 * Rapsodia ebraica (1935)
 * Swedish Rhapsody for orchestra (1941)
 * Den judiska sången ("Jewish song"), choral symphony for soloists, chorus and orchestra (1944)
 * Dibbuk (1948)
 * String Quartet No. 2; Concerto No. 1 for piano and orchestra (1952)
 * Cellokonzert (1954)
 * Concerto for cello and orchestra (1955)
 * Five sketches for string quartet (1956)
 * Concerto for viola and orchestra (1964)
 * String Quartet No. 3 (1967)
 * Sonata for flute and piano (1968)
 * String Quartet No. 4; Concerto No. 2 for piano and orchestra (1975)

Film soundtracks

 * They Staked Their Lives (1940)
 * The Girl and the Devil (1944)
 * Barabbas (1953)