On 24 and 25 October Andrew Manze conducts the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra in the Belgian premiere of Anders Hillborg’s King Tide. The 13-minute work is named for the very highest tides and evokes powerful natural currents, with vast ebbs-and-flows.
The orchestration calls for a large wind section, with multiple complex string divisi characteristic of Hillborg’s work that at points create a soft, eerie underlay for other instrumental gestures. The lack of a percussion section in the piece contributes to its suggestion of smooth layers that swell, surge, and dissolve by turns. These layers are created from alternating and overlapping patterns built primarily from sustained tones with varying dynamic levels or repeated figures.
King Tide has had nearly thirty performances to date. It premiered in 1999 with the Göteborgs Symfoniker and Neeme Järvi and was recorded in 2011 by the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic and Sakari Oramo. It has appeared with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Andrey Broeyko, the Swedish Radio Symphony with Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León and Andrew Gourlay. The Göteborgs Symfoniker returned to the work in 2024 with Pekka Kuusisto as part of their all-Hillborg programme celebrating his 70th birthday.
The Antwerp Symphony previously premiered Hillborg’s Cello Concerto with Nicolas Altstaedt in 2020. Andrew Manze has become a dedicated followed of Hillborg’s work. In 2021 he gave the world premiere of Hillborg’s Viola Concerto with Lawrence Power and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, conducting subsequent performances of the piece with the Dresden Philharmonic and Scottish Chamber Orchestra in 2023 and 2024. He has also performed Hillborg’s clarinet concerto Peacock Tales with Martin Fröst and NDR Radiophilharmonie, and in 2017/18 joined Pekka Kuusisto for national premieres of Bach Materia (for violin and strings) with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and Camerata Salzburg respectively.
In October and November Hillborg’s work will be in focus at Lithuania’s GAIDA Festival in Vilnius. On 24 October the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra perform Hillborg’s Exquisite Corpse – a deliriously surrealist-inspired collage, drawing on Ligeti, Sibelius, and Stravinsky – and Violin Concerto No.2, with Carolin Widmann as soloist; the violinist previously gave the UK premiere of his first Concerto in 2017 as part of the BBC’s Total Immersion focus at the Barbican. The next day Polifonija perform Hillborg’s choral soundscape Mouyayoum and environmentalist paean The Breathing of the World with Nicolas Altstaedt.
On 30 October the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra play Cold Heat – the first Swedish work to ever be premiered by the Berlin Philharmonic – and conclude the focus with a double-bill of concertos on 7 November; Lawrence Power give the national debut of the Viola Concerto, whilst Zbignevas Ibelhauptas takes centre-stage in Piano Concerto No.2 – the MAX Concerto.