Lindberg, M.: Piano Concerto No. 1 / Kraft

Album review

Because Magnus Lindberg has absorbed myriad avant-garde influences and explored the full range of modernist techniques, his works overflow with fleeting associations -- from Messiaen and Boulez to Ferneyhough and Xenakis -- and overwhelm the listener with startling and even ferocious inventions. Lindberg's music is crammed with events and is often layered in a montage style, creating dense textures similar to the spectral school's stacked sounds. Yet movement is also important to Lindberg, and his elaborate pieces churn with restless activity and forward momentum. Brilliantly colorful and continually animated, the Piano Concerto (1990-1994) is a true test for the pianist, and Lindberg himself performs the unrelenting solo part with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen. At times delicate and shimmering, the concerto is fairly accessible, and represents the clarified style Lindberg has employed since 1988. More brutally direct and complex, Kraft (1985) contrasts highly active instrumental lines in its foreground with thick agglomerations of orchestral material in the background. In Lindberg's updated concerto grosso format, a small group of clarinet, cello, piano, and percussion is pitted against the massive orchestra, and the interactions between the Toimii Ensemble and FRSO are highly complicated and often hard to sort out. Ondine's recorded sound is clear and resonant.

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