Town in Sweden. On the southern coast, it is recorded as early as 1170 and was founded as a city in 1275. Part of Denmark during the Middle Ages, it grew during the 16th century to be the second Danish city, with a royal mint and a castle where the Danish court chapel may have followed the king. Malmö became an early centre of the Reformation through the publication there of Claus Mortensen's hymnal (1529). In 1658 the town was ceded to Sweden, and its musical life declined to a provincial level. At its centre were the two main churches (including St Petri, similar to the Marienkirche in Lübeck, the organ of which dates from c1500 and is in the Malmö museum), the grammar school and the secular regimental pipers and town musicians, the last of whom, H.J. Tengvall, retired in 1811.
In the 19th century a normal pattern of bourgeois musical activity developed. In 1809 a theatre was opened for performances by touring companies, including troupes performing comic opera. A Musiksällskap (Music Society) was founded in 1825 by Tengvall; it consisted mostly of amateurs, who performed in operas (e.g. Cherubini's Anacréon, 1832) and gave concerts, the first of which (1826) was given in aid of the Greeks' struggle for independence and was probably the first public concert in Malmö. In the 1860s the society was revitalized by J.A. Cyrén, who increased the size of the choir to 80 members, and under whom 20 concerts were given by the year 1885, when the society was dissolved.
At the end of the 19th century Malmö's rise to its position as the third city of Sweden resulted in further musical activity. In 1900 Andreas Hallén, the renowned Wagnerian, gave a series of oratorio concerts which led to the foundation in 1902 of the Sydsvenska Filharmoniska Förening (South Swedish Philharmonic Society). It had a choir of 150 and an orchestra of about 40 members, drawn from military bands, restaurant orchestras and amateurs. Mendelssohn's Elijah was a typical item of the society's repertory. In 1911 Giovanni Tronchi, director from 1907 of the private Malmö Conservatory, founded the city's first symphony orchestra, consisting of about 40 restaurant and theatre orchestra musicians. Richard Henneberg reorganized the Sydsvenska Filharmoniska Förening in 1912 to include more amateurs and gave some 30 concerts annually. In 1914 Tronchi again instituted a rival orchestra; both, however, ceased activity in 1915. The following year Henneberg took over the Malmö Orkesterförening, which was active until 1921, when it was dissolved as a result of trade union opposition.
In 1925 Tor Mann introduced a professional orchestra of 51 players organized by the Stiftelsen Malmö Konserthus, a foundation which from 1919 attempted to provide Malmö with a concert hall. Until 1985, when the new hall (cap. 1300) was inaugurated, concerts were given in the poor acoustics of the Stadsteater (1944, cap. 1650). The orchestra's successive conductors have been W. Meyer-Radon (1926–30), Georg Schnéevoigt (1930–47), S.-Å. Axelson (1947–61), Elyakum Shapirra (1969–73), Janos Fürst (1973–7), Stig Westerberg (1978–85), Vernon Handley (1985–8), James DePriest (1990–94) and Paavo Järvi (from 1994). The orchestra, eventually numbering 80 musicians, also played for opera and operetta until the Malmö Musikteaters Orkester was founded in 1991. Operettas were performed at the Hippodromteater between 1922 and 1950 and again from 1994.
Chamber music has been promoted since 1910 by Salomon Smith's Kammarmusikförening, which gives five concerts annually in both Malmö and Lund. Ars Nova, founded in 1960, has supported contemporary music and has given many first performances. The Malmö Simfoniorkesters Kör (1975) has replaced the Sydsvenska Filharmoniska Förening as the leading choir (under Dan-Olof Stenlund), and the symphony orchestra of the YMCA is an outstanding amateur ensemble. Musical training is given at the Musikhögskola i Malmö which took over the conservatory in 1971.
The small town of Lund, 16 km north-east of Malmö, was a bishopric as early as 1060 and in 1103 became the first Scandinavian archbishopric. Its Romanesque cathedral had a choir in the early 12th century and an organ by 1331. In 1668 Sweden's second university was founded there, as was an ‘Akademiska Kapell’, a centre of secular music, in 1745. In 1929 its director musices, Gerhard Lundqvist, organized the Lunds Orkesterförening, now the Stadsorkester, formed of professionals and students; Lundqvist's successor Johan Åkesson established the chamber orchestra Capella Lundensis in 1966. A Scandinavian youth orchestra founded in 1951 by John Fernström gives numerous concerts each summer. A male-voice choir, the Lunds Studentsångförening, was founded in 1831 by Otto Lindblad; among later conductors was Folke Bohlin, professor of musicology at the university (1986–95). Folke Alm founded the cathedral’s Oratorieförening in 1964, and Lundqvist's Kammarmusikförening (1944) long gave musicians in the region opportunities for chamber music.
B. Möller: Lundensisk studentsång under ett sekel [A century of student singing at Lund] (Lund, 1931)
B. Alander: ‘Stadsmusiken i Malmö under 1600- och 1700-talen’, Malmö Fornminnesförening årsskrift, x (1942), 7–47
E. Rodhe: ‘Domkyrkan och kyrkomusiken’ [Cathedral and church music], Lunds domkyrkas historia 1145–1945, ed. E. Newman (Stockholm, 1946), 598–607
B. Alander, ed.: Malmö Musikkonservatorium 1907–1957 (Malmö, 1957)
L. Ljungberg: ‘Musikaliska Sällskapet i Malmö’ [The Malmö music society], Malmö Fornminnesförening årsskrift, xxxi (1965), 108–11
G. Sjöqvist: Från musikkonservatorium till musikhögskola 1907–1982 (Malmö, 1982)
Malmö symfoni orkester: en rapsodi (Malmö, 1985)
G. Andersson, ed.: Akademiska kapellet i Lund 250 år (Lund, 1995)
HANS ÅSTRAND