Born in Järnskog on 6th May 1922 Blomberg was a composer and music teacher. In early years he wrote music for music-hall. He graduated from the State Academy of Music in Stockholm in 1954 as a music teacher, and also studied composition with Erland von Koch and Gunnar Bucht. This is the background to his variegated output, the main emphasis of which, however, is on five symphonies.

Blomberg himself described his development as a progression through various, chronologically specified, phases. Between 1964 and 1974 he composed in a style which he called “atonal, perhaps rather post-Webern“. Next, up to and including 1979, he concentrated on studies of various kinds of musical material. This resulted in the “crystallisation-out of intentionally stereotyped elements — but music, not studies of material“. About his later production he said: “The development continues, onwards instead of reverting to an ostensibly tonal style. I try to write simply, without any nostalgic withdrawal“.

Erik Blomberg died on 24th July 2006.

Hans-Gunnar Peterson