Lindberg: Graffiti; Seht die Sonne

Helsinki Chamber Choir (Artist), Magnus Lindberg (Composer), Sakari Oramo (Conductor), Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra (Orchestra) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Orchestra: Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra
• Conductor: Sakari Oramo
• Composer: Magnus Lindberg
• Audio CD (February 23, 2010)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Ondine
• ASIN: B0031O7V6I
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #215,325 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2010/May10/lindberg_ode_1157-2_hc.htm

"GRAFFITI is Lindberg's first work for chorus and orchestra. As the title makes clear, this is a setting of ancient Roman graffiti discovered on the walls of Pompeii. These fragments deal with all sorts of things such as insults, slogans, advertisements and even what looks like a shopping list of some sort. Sex, too, is not absent, be it often in rather crude words. These fragments as compiled and arranged by the composer do not suggest any real narrative. The somewhat random order of these fragments rather suggests the vision of a visitor going around Pompeii's ruins and having a look at these graffiti in passing. This may be the strength of the work because it leaves the composer free hand to handle and develop his material. It may also be its relative weakness because the absence of true narrative excludes any sense of logic; but were these graffiti logical? The music is generally simpler than in other works by Lindberg. It tends towards achieving archaic character by having recourse to modal writing often clashing with more chromatic orchestral passages. The music also evokes composers whom one might not have associated with Lindberg: Rózsa and Orff. However, GRAFFITI is a colourful, superbly crafted and eminently accessible musical fresco in its own right. One might now be interested to hear what Lindberg would do while setting a more cogently constructed text.

Composed to a commission from the Berlin Philharmonic and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Seht die Sonne was premiered under Simon Rattle in Berlin in 2007. "Seht die Sonne" are the first words sung in the last part of Schoenberg's Gurrelieder; but Lindberg's music neither alludes to nor quotes from Schoenberg's work. Seht die Sonne is a purely abstract piece of music exploring a number of moods on a grand scale. Unlike GRAFFITI, however, Seht die Sonne is a much more integrated piece of symphonic writing. Much of the music is derived from a motif played by the horns at the opening of the first section. This does not exclude a huge range of contrast throughout the work and the music alternates massive episodes with others of almost chamber-like transparency. The most striking of the latter being the cello's cadenza at the end of the second movement leading straight into the final movement. This opens in a lively manner, builds up to a final climax and ends with a beautiful coda sounding as an appeased farewell. "If the opening horn signal could be regarded as harking back to the opening of the Fifth Symphony of Sibelius, the conclusion is much closer to the sphere of his Sixth". I cannot but agree with these words by Kimmo Korhonen printed in the insert notes. This beautifully crafted and often imposing work is on a par with some of Lindberg's finest achievements such as Aura - the latter a masterpiece.

Performances and recordings are just superb and up to Ondine's best standards. Oramo conducts vital readings of both scores and the Helsinki Chamber Choir sing with evident relish. All in all, this is another fine release although I will again complain over the rather short playing time. Fans of Lindberg will know what to expect although GRAFFITI may come as a slight surprise, others might investigate this release because Lindberg's music is of its time while remaining accessible." -Hubert Culot

San Fransisco Chronicle: May 9, 2010

"Finnish composer Magnus Lindberg writes in large, monolithic blocks of sound, with dense harmonies and melodies that often move in short, crabbed steps. That hasn't changed, but the two recent pieces included on this disc suggest a new concern with humanizing values and communicative clarity. "Seht die Sonne," which the San Francisco Symphony co-commissioned and gave its North American premiere in 2008, is as massive and solidly built as anything else in Lindberg's catalog. What's different is the melodic grace of the writing and the gleaming transparency of the orchestral textures, beautifully rendered by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra under conductor Sakari Oramo. The companion piece, "Graffiti," is a choral setting of various Latin scribbles - commercial, philosophical, obscene or inscrutable - left behind along the streets and alleyways of Pompeii. The use of Lindberg's trademark sonorities to conjure up ancient walls is a little obvious, and there's more than a whiff of sword-and-sandal cliches here; but the cumulative effect of the piece is powerful in spite of it all." -Joshua Kosman

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brawny Baltic Beauties!, October 20, 2010

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Giordano Bruno (Wherever I am, I am.) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Lindberg: Graffiti; Seht die Sonne (Audio CD)

Finnish-born composer Magnus Lindberg (b. 1958) has avoided designating any of his orchestral compositions as "symphonies". I suspect that his reasoning reflects his perspective as a "historically informed" composer, like nearly every North European of his generation. A 'symphony' is a specific structure, with very specific historical connotations, and Lindberg is well aware that he hasn't yet chosen to write within or in explicit response to the structure. The two compositions recorded on this CD, nevertheless, are bountifully 'symphonic' in character and affect. Both are richly orchestrated, replete with instrumental colors, and both are of a length and power to be featured works on the program of any symphonic orchestra. Lindberg has become a supremely confident composer in recent years, which has allowed him to write music that is every bit as harmonically rigorous as his earlier works yet more comfortable in its dissonances, less defiant and dire, more willing to seem accessible even to listeners who have no grasp of tonality, let alone atonality.

"Seht die Sonne" (2007) is in fact an orchestral tribute to the music of Arnold Schoenberg, from a composer who is plainly the heir of Jan Sibelius. It was commissioned by The Berlin Philharmonic and the San Francisco Symphony, and premiered under the baton of Simon Rattle. It is in effect "symphonic" in everything but structure, with three 'sections' that are performed without pause. The dramatic shifts in tempo and in textural density within each section are more obvious to the listener than the sectional divisions. It's tranquil and triumphant in turns, with lovely transparencies of instrumentation and with several strikingly virtuosic cadenzas, especially for cello. It's a work that will reward several 'hearings' in close succession.

"Graffiti" (2009) is Lindberg's first large-scale work for voices - a 'choral symphony' in everything but that classical structure. The text is in Latin, a selection of graffiti found on the walls of Pompeii, assembled by Lindberg himself. The texts run from snippets of Virgil to 'ads' for anchovy sauce to scatology, interwoven and reiterated against monumental instrumental declamations. I suspect that "Graffiti" will remind many listeners of Karl Orff's famous "Carmina Burana", but Lindberg's composition is rewardingly more complex and diverse in affect. That it represents a 'lament' for the destruction of Pompeii, the instant obliteration of a living social organism, is obvious throughout, but it's not a Cecil B. DeMille spectacle of melodrama. To my mind, it's more a celebration of the consolations of oblivion. Anyway, it's gorgeous, vigorous music, thrilling both to perform and to hear.

A piece of music, I think, has one obligatory task: to be 'better' than an equivalent stretch of pure silence. More affective, more involving, exhilarating, elevating ... dare I say, entertaining? Lindberg never shirks that obligation. He's not embarrassed to write something plainly beautiful, like the concluding passages of "Seht die Sonne", yet he's not afraid to 'challenge' his audience with ferocious harmonic adventures and nerve-racking sonic outbursts. His Clarinet Concerto is one of the masterworks of "our" generation. The Baltic countries - Finland, Estonia, Sweden, Denmark, Norway - have produced an astonishing number of brilliant composers in the last 50-some years -- Pärt, Sven-Tuur, Sallinen, Rautavaara, Salonen, Saariaho, Hilborg, Per Lindborg, Sorensen, Norgård come quickly to mind. Magnus Lindberg is not the least amongst them.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Lindberg masterpiece, May 11, 2010

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Craig M. Zeichner "CMZ" (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Lindberg: Graffiti; Seht die Sonne (Audio CD)

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.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excavations and the Constancy of Human Emotion, November 21, 2010

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Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Lindberg: Graffiti; Seht die Sonne (Audio CD)

Magnus Lindberg continues to impress with every new work he composes. This current recording contains two works: 'Seht die Sonne' is a purely orchestral work that apparently was influenced by the closing chorus from Arnold Schoenberg's 'Gurrelieder', that breathtaking moment when the multiple part choruses sing 'Behold the sun, gay-colored on the margin of the sky' in an eruption of sound that is staggeringly beautiful. Lindberg's piece may not live up to this inspiration, but it is a very beautiful work nonetheless.

The true masterpiece here is the recorded premiere of his 'Graffiti' - a fascinating work for large orchestra and (finally!) chorus. The work is Lindberg's response to the the excavated graffiti phrases found when the city of Pompeii was uncovered. The phrases on the walls are sung by the chorus - phrases about found jugs, marketing prices, gladiators, scheduled crucifixions and animal games, love thoughts, and 'purple phrases' - all phrases whose similarities can be found on today's public places suggesting that man has not changed in 2000 years, evidence that we are still secretly scratching phrases that scream 'I am here'! One phrase is repeated several times, a phrase that states the wall may crumble with the weight of all the grafitti! For this lush choral writing Lindberg has created an orchestral sound that, while rarely straying from tonal, uses instrumental colors like few other contemporary composers. The work opens darkly with contrabassoon and other deep instruments sounding like the depths of the earth from which Pompeii was uncovered and gradually adding other unique colors and keyboards including the organ to cross the centuries of musical ideas and human emotions. It is a very successful work: Esa-Pekka Salonen returned to the LA philharmonic to introduce his friend's piece in this country and the resulting performance in the Disney Hall acoustics was astonishingly fine.

On this recording Sakari Oramo conducts the Helsinki Chamber Choir and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra in a tightly correct if not thrilling performance of both works. It is a recording that hopefully will be joined by many others as the world awakens to the stature of Magnus Lindberg. Grady Harp, November 20