Composer Magnus Lindberg (b. 1958) is one of Europe’s leading names in contemporary music. Having travelled a long road as a composer, from the steely and edgy modernism of his early period to the soft and sonorous sound worlds of his most recent output, Lindberg’s new, more emollient sound world building on a harmonic environment rooted in pentatonic scales at times seem to hark back even to Debussy and Impressionism. This new album by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and its chief conductor Nicholas Collon features some of the most recent orchestral compositions by Magnus Lindberg culminating with his new Viola Concerto, a substantial new work masterfully performed by Lawrence Power as soloist.

After writing two Cello Concertos and two Violin Concertos, Lindberg had long wanted to write a concerto for the viola. Lindberg notes that although viola is not as prominent a solo instrument, it is enormously rich, thanks to its different expressive modes, possessing a huge variety of possibilities. While the Viola Concerto is related to Lindberg’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in terms of its orchestration, it also bears a kinship with his grandiose and brilliant Piano Concerto No. 3 (2022), written for Yuja Wang. While these two are very different in appearance, they are rooted in a similar harmonic idiom combining pentatonics with overtone harmonies. The fanfare-like opening of the first movement ushers in an expansive and lucid sonority and introduces the soloist as a confident hero, the unquestioned main character of in this musical narrative. The first two movements are separated by a brief pause, but the opening of the second movement nevertheless feels like a response to the concluding chords of the first. The concluding movement is much more energetic than the first two. The soloist is invited to improvise a cadenza, after which the music erupts into a brisk finale cast in asymmetrical metres. At the culmination, the orchestra unleashes a blaze of colour, bringing the work to a radiant conclusion.

The 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth in 2020 was celebrated with a variety of events. Magnus Lindberg was commissioned to write Absence for the occasion by the Rotterdam Philharmonic. One of Lindberg’s sources of inspiration for Absence was in the conversation notebooks that Beethoven used in his later years to communicate with others, as he had nearly completely lost his hearing. The conversations recorded in them meandered from everyday practicalities to elevated philosophical musings. The rapid shifts from the mundane to the sublime inspired Lindberg to seek an idiom that would highlight rather than suppress contrasts. Lindberg quotes a number of motifs from Beethoven. The most important of these comes from Piano Sonata No. 26 in E flat major, Les Adieux – which is also about absence. The music is sonorous yet lucid, reminiscent of Debussy’s poetry of nuances.

Serenades was premiered by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in December 2021. It is very much a nocturnal work, full of the fleeting, mysterious moods of the night. Cast in a single movement, it is very much a nocturnal work, full of the fleeting, mysterious moods of the night. The sonorities of Serenades prompt associations with Sibelius and Debussy, and a kinship with the ‘Nachtmusik’ movements in Mahler’s Seventh Symphony has also been mentioned. In the latter half of the piece, a brief pizzicato moment on low strings followed by a pause highlights a turning point propelling an escalation towards grand culminations. Highlighting contrasts in the material, this escalation is cut short by a sensually romantic scene on strings, the most traditionally ‘serenade-like’ moment in the piece, which then evolves into a monumental culmination followed by a tranquil conclusion.

Internationally-acclaimed viola player Lawrence Power is widely heralded for his richness of sound, technical mastery and his passionate advocacy for new music. Lawrence has premiered concertos by leading composers such as James MacMillan, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Julian Anderson, Alexander Goer, and has commissioned works by Anders Hillborg, Thomas Adès, Gerald Barry, Cassandra Miller and Magnus Lindberg. Over the past decade, Lawrence has become a regular guest performer with orchestras of the highest calibre, from Chicago Symphony, Boston Symphony, Royal Concertgebouw, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Stockholm, Bergen and Warsaw Philharmonic orchestras to the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, BBC Symphony, Philharmonia, Hallé, BBC Scottish Symphony and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic orchestras, with conductors such as Osmo Vänskä, Lahav Shani, Paavo Järvi, Vladimir Jurowski, Andrew Manze, Edward Gardner, Nicholas Collon, Ilan Volkov and Esa-Pekka Salonen. He is familiar to audiences around the UK and has made 13 BBC Proms appearances. He is on the faculty at Zurich’s Hochschule  der Kunst and gives masterclasses around the world, including at the Verbier Festival. In 2020, Lawrence was awarded Instrumentalist of the Year by the Royal Philharmonic Society. As a chamber musician he is in much demand and regularly performs at Verbier, Salzburg, Aspen, Oslo and other festivals with artists such as Steven Isserlis, Nicholas Alstaedt, Simon Crawford-Phillips, Vilde Frang, Maxim Vengerov and Joshua Bell. Lawrence plays a viola made in Bologna in 1590 by Antonio Brenzi and also a Brothers Amati viola from 1580 on loan from the Karolina Blaberg Stifftung.

The Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra (FRSO) is the orchestra of the Finnish Broadcasting Company (Yle), and its mission is to produce and promote Finnish musical culture. The Radio Orchestra of ten players founded in 1927 grew to symphony orchestra proportions in the 1960s. Its Chief Conductors have been Toivo Haapanen, Nils-Eric Fougstedt, Paavo Berglund, Okko Kamu, Leif Segerstam, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Sakari Oramo, Hannu Lintu, and as of autumn 2021 Nicholas Collon. In addition to the great Classical-Romantic masterpieces, the latest contemporary music is a major item in the repertoire of the FRSO, which each year premieres a number of Yle commissions. The FRSO has twice won a Gramophone Award: for its album of Lindberg’s Clarinet Concerto in 2006 and of Bartók Violin Concertos in 2018. Other distinctions have included BBC Music Magazine, Académie Charles Cros, MIDEM Classical awards and Grammy nominations in 2020 and 2021. Its album of tone poems and songs by Sibelius won an International Classical Music Award (ICMA) in 2018. In 2023, the orchestra was nominated for Gramophone’s Orchestra of the Year award and won a Gramophone Award for their Lotta Wennäkoski album.

British conductor Nicholas Collon is recognized for his elegant conducting style, searching musical intellect and inspirational music-making. He began as Chief Conductor of the Finnish Radio Symphony in August 2021 – the first non-Finnish conductor ever to hold this post. From 2016–2021 he was Chief Conductor of the Residentie Orkest in Den Haag (latterly also Artistic Advisor) and was Principal Guest of Gürzenich-Orchester from 2017–2022. Collon’s plans in Helsinki in 2023/24 include a focus on Richard Strauss, a residency with Sir George Benjamin, as well as plans to premiere an unprecedented 13 new works. He also leads the Aurora Orchestra in their residencies at Kings Place and at the Southbank, where they have reinvented the concert format with their ‘Orchestral Theatre’ Series. Together they appear regularly at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Cologne Philharmonie, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, and festivals such as Bremen, Rheingau, Schleswig Holstein, Gstaad, and the BBC Proms where they perform every year in their hugely popular memorized performances.