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.
Finally, Sound Atlas, stylishly conducted by Brad Lubman, showcases Hillborg’s sonic imagination and affection for unusual instruments. Here it’s the verrophone, invented by German musician Sascha Reckert, where the rims of glass tubes are rubbed with wet fingers, similar to playing wine glasses. The orchestra is often instructed to play slightly sharp or flat, their microtonal clashes lending the work a spectral quality. A pair of gleaming slow movements pitch into the glittering Vaporised Toy Pianos followed by the roiling Vortex before concluding with Hymn, a noble finale in the manner of Sibelius.
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