Swedish composer
Anders Hillborg
has been active in electronic music, popular music, and folk music, as well as conventional classical genres, and one can hear traces of all of those on this album, which unexpectedly appeared on the
Sony Classical
label in 2024. That may have been due to the influence of star conductor
Esa-Pekka Salonen
, who has championed
Hillborg
's music in the past, and indeed, his ability to cleanly execute complex orchestral textures with the
Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra
is one key to the album's success. The folk influence on
is most evident in the voice-and-violin duo
Kväll
, whose vocal melody is based closely on a Swedish folk song but whose violin lines refract the melody in various ways. The orchestral
Liquid Marble
contains the swirling textures the title might suggest, but out of them emerges, in the first movement, an unexpected ragtime-like passage. The main attraction is the
Violin Concerto No. 2
, played cleanly by the charismatic young violinist
Eldbjørg Hemsing
. There is a hint of pastoralism in the bird calls that appear at the beginning of the work, which one almost thinks are electronic in nature but then realizes they are produced by violins alone. This isn't simple music, and one might have wished for more guidance in the booklet in place of a lengthy profile of the
, but it yields a bit to multiple hearings, and
Hemsing
's violin work is top-notch, as is the sound from Stockholm's Berwaldhallen. ~ James Manheim