LINDBERG, M.: Graffiti - Seht Die Sonne
Sakari Oramo, The Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra & Helsinki Chamber Choir
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| Total: 9 Songs |
Customer Reviews
Great new music from Lindberg
This record seems to mark a turn in Magnus Lindberg's career as a composer. Along with the recent Clarinet Concerto, the music here is, for lack of a better term, more accessible than earlier works like the masterpiece "Kraft." "Graffiti" is also a new venture in that the composer is writing for the chorus.
In this context, accessible is not an insult to contemporary music. Lindberg is as rugged and forceful as ever. The changes are in the sound, which is a little brighter, more spacious and colorful and immediately attractive to the ear. The vocal writing is very fine, very singable, and that also makes for a more immediate effect on the listener. The text comes from graffiti on the walls of Pompeii, and the music expresses what the words explicitly convey; it's vulgar, humorous, aggressive in turns, and foreshadows the pending doom by slowly falling and disappearing into fate at the end. This is exciting, intriguing, energetic music.
"Seht Die Sonne" is an excellent three movement symphony, very fluid in how it moves along but with clearly identifiable sections, structures and really attractive musical material. The orchestral playing is excellent, the sound is full and rich. Stylistically, it's a great combination of modern touches and a Romantic sensibility, along the lines of the later symphonies of George Rochberg and Penderecki. A great release for fans of Lindberg, and an ideal way for new listeners to start with him.
Another Lindberg masterpiece
Few contemporary composers have produced as steady a stream of intellectually engaging and accessible music as Finland’s Magnus Lindberg. Lindberg has excelled in so many genres that it’s surprising he has never written a choral work until now. Graffiti, a large-scale work for choir and orchestra, premiered in 2009 and won the Finnish Teosto Award.
The work is in one long movement and in it the composer sets ancient Latin graffiti inscriptions that were found on the walls of Pompeii. It’s a fascinating idea and these little snippets – some are as banal as notice for a missing pot, while others such as “You are dead, you are nothing”—
are especially poignant considering Pompeii’s grim fate. Lindberg weaves some lean but extremely colorful orchestral writing around a rather eclectic vocal style that has some echoes of Britten and, more obviously, Orff. The comparison to Orff’s Carmina Burana is surely going to be made by some, but Lindberg makes a potent statement without any of Orff’s vulgar excesses.
The balance of the recording is devoted to Lindberg’s 2007 Seht die Sonne (Behold the Sun), an orchestral piece that takes its title from the final choral section of Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder. This is muscular and ecstatic orchestral music on the grand scale. Lindberg’s music is filled with big gestures and whether it’s the concerto grosso-like passages for solo instruments (the cello cadenza in the second movement) or the haunting chorale in the final movement, everything works brilliantly. I don’t think there has been such a powerful orchestral work in the post-Messiaen era.
The performances by the Helsinki Chamber Choir and Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra are miraculous. The choir sings with power, passion and athleticism – this is difficult music! Men’s voices are richly sonorous and the women are their match at the upper end of the register. Outstanding in every way, I can’t wait until the next Lindberg premiere.
Top Albums and Songs By Helsinki Chamber Choir
| Name | Album | Time | Price | ||
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1 |
Graffiti: Bar 111 | LINDBERG, M.: Graffiti - Seht Die Sonne | 4:16 | $0.99 | View In iTunes |
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2 |
Graffiti: Beginning | LINDBERG, M.: Graffiti - Seht Die Sonne | 4:12 | $0.99 | View In iTunes |
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3 |
Graffiti: Bar 232 | LINDBERG, M.: Graffiti - Seht Die Sonne | 6:13 | $0.99 | View In iTunes |
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Graffiti: Bar 403 | LINDBERG, M.: Graffiti - Seht Die Sonne | 4:41 | $0.99 | View In iTunes |
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Graffiti: Bar 682 | LINDBERG, M.: Graffiti - Seht Die Sonne | 5:47 | $0.99 | View In iTunes |
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6 |
Graffiti: Bar 518 | LINDBERG, M.: Graffiti - Seht Die Sonne | 6:28 | $0.99 | View In iTunes |
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