On 10 August Lawrence Power gives the US premiere of Anders Hillborg’s Viola Concerto (2021) at the Aspen Festival, with the Festival Orchestra conducted by Piotr Wacławik.
The 20-minute concerto has more chamber-like dimensions than some of Hillborg’s larger orchestral works. Special use is made of the soprano saxophone, an instrument Hillborg has spotlighted several times in his work, whose lines often double the solo viola in an idiosyncratic mix of timbres. Like his recent Cello Concerto and Piano Concerto No.2, written for Emanuel Ax, it is cast in one unbroken movement.
“With the viola, there’s a tradition of sad, “lachrymae” music. My idea was to do the complete opposite”, writes Hillborg. Power wanted to commission a work that brought out its heroic qualities rather than elegiac aspects. The concerto is bookended by two ‘Rage’ sections in which the solo viola opens with furious, insistent semiquavers. Elsewhere Hillborg also asks the orchestra’s string players to strike their instruments with bamboo sticks for a rough col legno sound.
A cleverly put-together showpiece which both begins and ends with anger…In between there is stillness and calm, elusive woodwinds…and rhythmic passages where bamboo sticks clatter against the strings… [there are] delicious Hillborg-esque sound effects where string glissandi suggest electronics…[and] a vibrato that makes the viola sound like a theremin.
Dagens Nyheter (Johanna Paulsson), 31 March 2023
The Viola Concerto was commissioned by Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, with co-commissioners Hessicherrundfunk; NTR ZaterdagMatinee, NPO Radio 4’s concert series in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw; Sveriges Radios Symfoniorkester; Sinfonieorchester Basel; and Aspen Music Festival and School, Robert Spano, Music Director, supported by The Viola Commissioning Circle.
Power returns to the piece in autumn 2024 with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Andrew Manze, who perform the work in Glasgow and Edinburgh as part of Nordic Music Days. The pair premiered the work with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra in October 2021; in June 2023 they performed it with the Dresden Philharmonic. It receives a further performance in the 24/25 season from Ionel Ungureanu, who joins the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and conductor Tianyi Lu at the Konzerthaus in May 2025.
The concerto has previously been performed by Power at the Concertgebouw with Osmo Vänskä, who conducted the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra; it made its German debut with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jukka-Pekka Saraste. The Swedish premiere of the piece was given in March 2023 by Omer Meir Wellber and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra – great champions of Hillborg in his 70th birthday celebration year.
Looking ahead, Hillborg’s Sound Atlas will receive its Finnish and US premieres from Ryan Bancroft in November 2024 and April 2025, from the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Los Angeles Philharmonic; the celebrated 20-minute work has a glittering, crystalline sound world, gives a special gleam by the inclusion of a glass harmonica. The 2024/25 season also sees the world premiere of new piece for Klaus Mäkelä and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in May 2025. In March 2025 Mäkelä also gives the Norwegian premiere of Hillborg’s Piano Concerto No.2 with Emanuel Ax at the Oslo Philharmonic.