Magnus Lindberg: GRAFFITI in concert and on disc
(March 2010)
Magnus Lindberg’s first work for choir and orchestra, GRAFFITI, has shown the composer breaking new ground in terms of vocal writing and text-setting. It was premiered in Helsinki in May 2009 and received its UK premiere in London in October with Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra. It can also be heard on a new disc released by Ondine in March with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sakari Oramo, coupled with Seht die Sonne (ODE 1157-2).Buy the new CD from our Online Shop
The success of the 33-minute work led to it winning the 2009 Teosto Prize, with the jury citation describing how “the Latin ‘graffiti’ fragments that date back to the time of the classical city of Pompeii form a fresco of that society.”
“All Roman life seems to be contained within these brief Latin texts, and Lindberg’s selection of around 60 of them – official proclamations and announcements, adverts and slogans of every kind – creates a kind of verbal patchwork quilt that builds into a rather touching snapshot of the doomed city… What is going on behind the voices is often just as fascinating as the vocal writing itself, and the orchestral writing comes to the fore in the dark, uneasy introduction and an interlude of woodwind two-thirds of the way through. It is such a beautiful, satisfyingly shaped choral work that you wonder why Lindberg took so long to get around to writing it.”
The Guardian
“From the growling bassoons rumbling up from the depths at the start this is a new departure. The music is grand, opulent, and alongside the expected modernisms come flashes of the Russian Romantics.”
Financial Times
Listen to an audio clip of GRAFFITI
Read an interview with Lindberg about GRAFFITI
Forthcoming performances of GRAFFITI include the US premiere at Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles on 19-21 November 2010, with Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and the LA Master Chorale.
Reviews of the Ondine disc of GRAFFITI and Seht die Sonne:
"Two of Magnus Lindberg's recent works, among the most substantial that he has composed to date, make a logical pairing. Taken together they show how effective his recent style is in creating large-scale musical structures."
The Guardian
"The effect is always upbeat, exuberant and laid down with immense panache by the Finnish forces involved, in spectacularly vivid sound."
Gramophone
> Further information on Work: GRAFFITI
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