On 28 June Christian Karlsen and the BBC Symphony Orchestra give the UK premiere of Anders Hillborg’s Dreaming River (1998) in a studio concert at Maida Vale, for later broadcast on BBC Radio 3’s New Music Show.
The title of the 22-minute piece underlines musical and metaphysical preoccupations fundamental to Hillborg’s work – molten, mobile melodic and textural figures, with varying levels of viscosity and fluidity, as well as a fantastical atmosphere that belongs to a transcendental realm of visions and hallucinations. An especially distinctive feature of the work is its use of two suonas – a traditional double-reeded instrument common in the folk music of northern China from the 3rd century onwards. Their astringent, intense sound is a little like that of an oboe, and in Dreaming River that are positioned antiphonally on each side of the orchestra, adding a wailing lament to the orchestral surface, whose animated activity ebbs and flows.
Dreaming River was commissioned and premiered by the Stockholm Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Hillborg’s champion Esa-Pekka Salonen in 1999, who later recorded the work. It has received subsequent performances from the Göteborgs Symfoniker and Neeme Järvi in 2003, Hannu Lintu with both Tampere Filharmonia and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra (2010 and 2011), and the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra with Baldur Brönnimann at the 2014 Hillborg festival in Stockholm.
Karlsen has given numerous performances of Hillborg’s work over the last decade, including the world premiere of Scream Sing Whisper with Asko|Schönberg at the Muziekgebouw in 2015 and its Swedish premiere with Vasteras Musiksalskap in 2017. In 2021 he gave the world premiere of Hillborg’s Kongsgaard Variations for string orchestra with the Stavanger Symfoniorkester, as part of an all-Hillborg programme.
'Water and liquid forms are a recurring metaphor in Hillborg's music... In Dreaming River, two woodwinds are posted at the edge of the stage, honking on Chinese oboes like dying sea birds prior to a gentle breeze of strings... It grows to a euphoric finale.‘
Svenska Dagbladet (Sofia Nyblom), 23 March 2007
'A ceaselessly intriguing stream of clear vision... The fascination with the sensual and festive, and the superb treatment of the orchestra – with new sounds woven together with an almost visual quality and richness of association, place the Hillborg in Strauss's vicinity.'
Dagens Nyheter (Thomas Anderberg), 8 November 1999
On 28 May Hillborg’s Cello Concerto (2020) was announced as one of the nominees for this year’s Nordic Council Music Prize. The 27-minute work is cast in one unbroken movement. It is characterised by the intimacy of its scoring - much of the piece is written for strings alone, with dazzling virtuosity eschewed in favour of long, yearning cantabile lines, giving the work a soulful and reflective quality. It was premiered by Nicolas Altstaedt and the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Fabien Gabel, and has been subsequently championed internationally by Amalie Stalheim. The prizewinner will be announced on 22 October.