Track Listing

1. Cantigas, for orchestra
2. Cello Concerto
3. Parada, for orchestra
4. Fresco, for orchestra

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #46193 in Music
• Brand: Sony
• Released on: 2002-06-04
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .23 pounds

Amazon.com
Four premier recordings add up to a generous dose of Magnus Lindberg's orchestral mastery, served up in lovingly prepared, magnificently engineered performances by the composer's friend and longtime champion Esa-Pekka Salonen. Within just a few minutes into Cantigas, you're swept up by swirling pools of color chords, ticklish brass flurries both muted and open, and chattering, petulant rhythmic figures that bounce off a pliable canvas of dense sonorities. Imagine Respighi's Pines of Rome Swiss-cheesed through a kaleidoscope, and you'll get the idea. Parada reveals a more austere side of Lindberg's protean talents, while the more sparely scored Cello Concerto showcases Anssi Karttunen's virtuosity. He deftly tosses off Lindberg's zigzagging melodic lines (which the orchestral members quickly answer or comment upon) and sails through a cadenza jam-packed with twitchy pizzicato pellets, buzz saw low notes, and suspenseful silences. Lastly, Fresco is a mega-study about loud and soft, laid out in huge sound blocks that effortlessly glide from gentle to aggressive. Booklet notes include clear, insightful, and informative composer comments. --Jed Distler

Customer Reviews

Stunners from Lindberg et al.
Sony Classical's recent release highlights three talented Finns: composer Magnus Lindberg, conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, and cellist Anssi Kartunnen. The disc confirms Lindberg's place among those few composers who successfully combine innovation and communication, drawing the audience in to new sounds and techniques that other composers just aren't able to combine in as immediately attractive a way.

Production on the disc is excellent. The liner notes feature an informative, somewhat technical interview with the composer that touches upon important structural aspects of each work. Martin Anderson nails Lindberg's style when he writes: "...this surface busy-ness and longer-term harmonic evolution seem to exist as two parallel worlds - almost as if you have to look underneath the exterior of the music to see what's really going on." The fact that Lindberg creates such a gorgeous exterior out of such rigorous and intellectual planning is stunning. Sound quality is demonstration-worthy, the loudest, most complex counterpoint springing vibrantly to life (this is also, no doubt, due to the virtuosity of the Philharmonia and the dedication and ability of Salonen in music like this).

The first work on the disc, "Cantigas", was composed for the Cleveland Orchestra. The tempo relationships, intervallic content (focusing upon that very "tonal" interval, the perfect fifth) and "fundamental, open function of the bass" combine to make the piece instantly accessible. The piece is typically busy, in Lindberg's style from Corrente and other works from the 90s, and several listens reveal fascinating details and interconnections. It's amazing how virtuosic some of the writing is, and the wind and brass of the Philharmonia have a heyday. My jaw dropped several times. The fantastic oboe soloist, Christopher O'Neal, is justly credited on the album cover, and his solos that introduce the "A" material at the beginning and return a little over halfway through the work would serve as excellent introductory guide posts to someone uninitiated to contemporary music. Similarly, when the oboe's opening, perfect fifth idea returns in the brass (after having been skewed throughout) at around 15:50, one feels a wonderful sense of harmonic arrival, similar to the feeling one gets at the recapitulation of a sonata-allegro movement. From 17:00 on, it's a roller-coaster ride, the brass punctuating wild bell-like chords, the woodwinds chattering away, and the bass line slowly prodding the entire ensemble to resolve on a gorgeously managed major triad, an arrival which the composer compares to the modulation at the end of Ravel's Bolero. The quiet ending is, admittedly, a bit of a let-down--I would have liked more time for the music to unwind.

The Cello Concerto begins with a catalogue of technique--bow pressure, harmonics, pizzicati, glissandi, etc. The orchestra gradually picks up on the harmonies implied by the soloist and the one-movement work is off. The melodic and harmonic material seems a bit harder to grasp than the very basic building blocks of "Cantigas", but the way the orchestra tends to follow and imitate the material the cello just introduced is easy to discern. The bulk of the opening of the work is gestural, with material introduced by the soloist and then developed by the orchestra beneath new material. A stratspheric interaction between high orchestral instruments, metallic percussion and celloharmonics (around 10:00) initiates a crazy sequence of events that evaporates into the bizarre cadenza. Beginning with fragmentedgestures, the cellist is joined by the orchestra in violent outbursts and the closing third of the work returns to the opening activity level, adding a beautiful lyrical melody here and there. The falling gestures that dominate the final 5 minutes of the work develop into downward glissandi from the soloist that close the work. Kartunnen's large, dark tone and flawless technique are shown in every light throughout the work. The recording balance is very natural, with the cello receding from the spotlight when necessary.

"Parada", the briefest work on the disc (12:38) is also the least "busy". Lindberg says that he tried to "make a genuinely slow-moving thing", and the harmonic motion is definitely slowed down compared to the other works on the disc, but busy-ness seems to be native to his style, and it remains here. The opening minutes of the work feature fairly anonymous chorale-like writing, but after a morph to the quick, busy second half, we are back in familiar territory. The activity subsides after a few minutes and we return to the chorale-like material. The less busy moments seemed very self-conscious and out of Lindberg's idiom to me, especially in the second half of the work where he seems to try to make up for his characteristic filigree with percussion activity. The work is the least original on the disc, but still has its interesting moments.

"Fresco" sticks to one idea throughout, "strong contrasts and clashes between chamber-like or lighter-textured music and almost harsh pillars of sound-blocks." These two musical worlds combine in every imaginable way throughout the 21 minute work and again put the orchestra to a very virtuosic test. Lindberg writesthat "there is basically no solution between these contrasts", and this may prove troublesome to some listeners, as there is no traditional conflict-resolution relationship to the work. It's definitely the hardest nut to crack on the disc, harkening back to the uncompromising world of "Kraft". One can't help but marvel at the athletics the orchestra goes through, but it would take many attentive listenings to really "figure out" this piece.

stunning neoromanticism -- the only Lindberg disc you need
This is an outstanding recording, a great major label showcase for Lindberg's forceful orchestral style, taking everything he learned as part of the avant-garde and applying it to works that are mainly tonal, with complex harmonies and rigourous internal development. My first impression of this music was that it was a sort of "generic modernism," but with repeated listening I realized that what led to this impression was the blending of romantic with modern elements.

Lutoslawski was a major influence on Lindberg's neotonal synthesis, which is interesting because the Polish composer incorporated modern influences into his more traditional approach, whereas with Lindberg it is the opposite, incorporating tonality into his modernism. Elliot Carter seems to me to be an influence as well, as there is a muscular and dynamic progression in every piece, and Sibelius is no doubt a factor as well. Lindberg began as a resolutely avant composer with his first works of the early 1980s. After a retreat in the late '80s, he returned with a new sound, one he has pursued ever since. Some may lament this as a turn to the past, but the avant-garde is way out ahead of most listeners, and Lindberg is now meeting them more than half-way with music that is still complex and challenging.

Unfortunately Lindberg has not produced music the equal of that found here since, and so this essential Sony disc is the only Lindberg you really need. I'm hoping that Magnus gets his mojo back some time soon, but until then we have this fantastic set of four compositions that mark the high tide of his creativity and energy.

Thrilling Revelations
To hear the music of Magnus Lindberg performed live, in a good concert hall, call be overwhelming - in the best sense of the word. His works contain such brilliance of ideas, pairing of orchestral choirs, sudden contrasts and evolving rhythms and colors of sound that grasping them intellectually would at first appear to be an insurmountable task. But give yourself over to the sensualist side of your brain and the experience becomes luxurious. These four works here recorded in beautifully rich sonics are all premiere recodings, and it will be a long time before anyone will match Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Philharmonia results. One may wish he had at hand his own LA Phil which has demonstrated an affinity for this composer's work, but the recording is successful all the same. At this point, for this listener, the all orchestral pieces work more successfully than the cello concerto, but that is quibbling. The incredible conversations between loud and soft in the 'Fresco', the endless spinning out of fresh thoughts in the 'Cantigas', and the multilayered beauties of 'Parada' all beg repeated hearings. All this from a composer born in 1958! Kudos to all concerned.