Sometimes, as a reviewer, you can get personal, and here's why: For a long time, no work has impressed me as much as Anders Hellborg's Second Violin Concerto, which violinist Eldbjörg Hemsing recorded here with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. According to Helborg, it's not about celebrating a particular style, it's about creating an experience. And what a thing it is: this violin concerto is like a grand eight-part narrative stream, as you are drawn away by its psychedelic influence, and in its context you are exposed to a veritable universe of sounds: there are lone violin lines singing at stratospheric heights, and winding soundscapes, reminiscent of liquid magma, but… Also huge orchestral explosions. Hellborg's orchestral score “Liquid Marble,” also recorded here, has a similar suggestive power. This is what contemporary music can sound like.
© Gregor Hohenberg
Helburg: Violin Concerto No. 2, liquid marble and bail
Eldbjörg Hemsing (violin), Hanna Holgersson (soprano), Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Esa-Pekka Salonen (conductor)
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