Hillborg: Lost Landscapes album review – sonic imagination and luminous colours
Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra/Kuusisto/Lubman/Falk Winland (Alpha) Unconventional instrumentation adds to the filmic feeling of these three works by the Swedish composer, played on this recording by a powerhouse orchestra on top form Anders Hillborg ’s stylistically eclectic work resists easy categorisation as these three rewarding works, performed by the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, demonstrate.
Lost Landscapes opens with signature glissandi , features a filmic, jazz-inflected chase and ends in an orchestral death spiral.
Pekka Kuusisto draws out its luminous colours and richly clustered harmonies.
The Strand Settings, a four-movement song cycle to texts by Canadian poet Mark Strand, was composed at the behest of Renée Fleming.
Nature, the elements and a certain forlorn eroticism infuse poetry that Hillborg responds to with tonal and dynamic restraint.
Gently pulsing strings with piquant woodwind and brass build atmospheric soundscapes over which Swedish soprano Ida Falk Winland spins haunting vocal lines in impeccable English.
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