Stefan LINDGREN (b. 1960)
Piano Concerto No. 4 (2012) [33:48]
Nocturne for soprano and orchestra (2012) [15:37]
Poem (2007) [9:20]
Stefan Lindgren (piano); Christin Högnabba (soprano)
Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra/Andrew Manze
rec. Helsingborg Konserthus, 14-16 Jan 2014
NOSAG CD215 [58:45]
A graduate of the Juilliard, the Swedish composer Stefan
Lindgren has been orchestral pianist with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra
(1993-2001) and the Royal Philharmonic (from 2007). His works include a symphony,
four piano concertos, six piano sonatas, piano quintet, piano quartet, flute
trio, horn trio, piano trio, violin sonata, cello sonata, clarinet sonata,
flute sonata, bassoon sonata, songs, poem for organ and a duo for clarinet
and piano. As a composer he has not lacked for recordings and we can cite
those on the Swedish label Nosag: chamber
music and piano sonatas (Nosag CD178). Lindgren has recorded the music
of Alkan for Daphne
and the works of Hammerth
for Nosag.
The soundworld inhabited by the Piano Concerto is abrasive
and with razory edges. There's a rising tempest with icy screes of
notes for the piano then echoed by the orchestra. At times it's like
a misty amalagam of Cyril Scott meeting Prokofiev. The central Lento
is all arctic ecstasy like a slightly dissonant and hypnotic version of Bax's
Winter Legends. The finale appears to find inspiration in Mussorgsky's
A Night on the Bare Mountain. There's tempestuous activity
here coupled with bursts of kinetic energy suggestive of Bartók and William
Schuman.
The Nocturne comprises three poems (by Goran Karlsson-Skoog)
for soprano and orchestra. An extended orchestral prelude in three parts casts
an intensely exotic spell, sometimes doom-laden, sometimes melancholy. Woodwind
are very much to the fore but always under a threatening orchestral pall.
During the singing Lindgren lightens the orchestration but not the atmosphere.
The soprano here is Christin Högnabba who is clearly in sympathy with the
composer's chilly and sometimes inimical emotional world. In this case
the work ends with singing and a calming orchestral underpinning that together
function as a blessing - a hymn sinking delightfully into silence.
Högnabba has also recorded with Lindgren an exciting collection of Finnish
songs to Swedish words. The featured composers are Merikanto, Palmgren, Melartin,
Järnefelt and that pretty much unknown colossus of Finnish symphony production,
Erik Fordell who vies with Leif Segerstam in quantity of symphonies. The Högnabba/Lindgren
song recitals are on Nosag CD 202 and CD 216. There's even an all-Fordell
song CD (Nosag CD223) from that duo. I hope that we might be able to review
these at some point.
Moderately dissonant, the Poem steps out, thoughtful
and restless, from the pages of Ives Unanswered Question. It sounds
for all the world like an updated echo of Scriabin. Malign brass call out
over Lindgren's strange landscape and the work closes in a threatening
rush.
The booklet is in Swedish and English and profiles all the artists and the
music. The sung words for Nocturne are reproduced but only in Swedish
on the rear insert.
Lindgren must surely be pleased with what I take to be a faithful audio account
of three of his major works. Nocturne stands out in this company.
Rob Barnett
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