Magnus Lindberg: Viola Concerto, Absence, Serenades

Composer Magnus Lindberg (b. 1958) is one of Europe’s leading names in contemporary music. This new album by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and its chief conductor Nicholas Collon features some of the most recent orchestral compositions by Lindberg culminating with his new Viola Concerto, a performed by Lawrence Power as soloist. Lindberg was commissioned by the Rotterdam Philharmonic to write Absence for the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth in 2020. Lindberg quotes a number of motifs from Beethoven, especially from Piano Sonata No. 26 in E-flat, “Les Adieux.” Serenades was premiered by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in December 2021. Cast in a single movement, it is very much a nocturnal work, suggesting a kinship with the “Nachtmusik” movements in Mahler’s Seventh Symphony.