Vi som fick plats på Stockholms konserthus hade tur. Som katter lapade vi i oss tonerna av världens lyxigaste sopran Renée Fleming i stycket ”Strand Settings” som den svenske kompositören Anders Hillborg specialkomponerat till henne. Den amerikanske poeten Mark Strand har skrivit texten, som sångerskan mjukt förde mellan det vemodigt honungslena och det gnistrande klara. Ljuvligt. Som tur är finns nätet. Och en länk, om inte till denna konsert, så till en liknande i London. Dessutom var det skivinspelning på Konserthuset i onsdags, så håll ut.

Maria Schottenius, Dagens Nyheter, 14 februari 2016

Skräddarsytt. Läckert krämigt när Fleming sjunger Hillborg

 Det var Polarprisglans med kung och drottning på plats när Konserthuset och Filharmonikerna i onsdags intogs av Renée Fleming, vinnare årgång 2008. Den amerikanska operaprimadonnan hade inget mindre än Anders Hillborgs specialskrivna ”Strand Settings” på notstället. En sopranistisk ljuvlighet uruppförd i ett jublande Carnegie Hall för ett par år sedan, nu en gåva till stockholmspubliken och ett kommande Flemingalbum.

Verket är verkligen skräddarsytt för hennes läckert krämiga stämma, till skillnad från det svalt vibratolösa sopransound som Hillborg brukar föredra. Men som han exponerar hennes företräden! Inledningen mörka havshorisont vilar andlöst i orkestern medan vokalstämman tecknar en ödslig kontur av det betraktande jaget.

Anders Hillborg kan besjäla det instrumentala landskapet som ingen annan och fånga poeten Mark Strands erotiskt laddade vemod. Men den elegiska skönheten bryts i en surrealistisk, skugglik studie av fallna ”änglar” i sjabbiga hamnkvarter – ett rasande raffigt scherzo med riffs i Bernsteins stil.

Camilla Lundberg, Dagens Nyheter, 12 februari 2016

Anders Hillborgs tonmåleri vädjar till en inre fantasi – innerligt tolkad av sopranen Renée Fleming i en konsert som är en av säsongens höjdpunkter.

Lars Hedblad, SvD, 11 februari 2016

...More brilliant and immediately striking was the other new work, by the Swedish composer Anders Hillborg, also premiered in 2013. The texts of The Strand Settings – by the Canadian-American poet Mark Strand, who died the following year, aged 80 – were articulated by Fleming with the keenest precision and the firmest expressive intentions; yet however thrillingly scored, Hillborg’s vital, shimmering accompaniments never overpowered her, always allowing space for the voice to cut through.

George Hall, The Guardian, 8 February 2016

...Hillborg’s songs by contrast unfolded in huge unhurried paragraphs, Fleming trailing her phrases of memory and longing across the music’s static chords, like the stars against the night sky so beautifully evoked in the poems. Starry nights, huge "cosmic" chords, feelings of regret - how easily these elements could have congealed into something sentimental and facile. It’s a tribute to Fleming’s artistry, and Hillborg’s subtlety, that they never did.

Ivan Hewett, The Telegraph, 6 February 2016

Serveäss av Hillborg

 The Strand Settings ett break för nyskriven konstmusik

I New York jublade publiken i flera minuter efter premiären av Anders Hillborgs stycke The strand settings. Historien upprepades i Los Angeles, Berlin och nu i Stockholms konserthus i torsdags.

The strand settings är provocerande bra musik. Smäktande och smärtande på samma gång, med sopranen Agneta Eichenholz i solistrollen. Typisk Hillborg-musik i hela sin djupa musikalitet och aerodynamiska design. Luften tar slut i rummet där hans musik dirigeras av Sakari Oramo. Som om själva koncentrationen lägger beslag på allt syre i lokalen.

Under tonsättarveckan i Stockholm har publiken kunnat följa en konstnär som via ungdomens Beatles, och aktivt körsjungande, slutligen hittat en unik position. Det handlar om klanglig lust – och lite ursinne. Och en koppling till lätt surrealistiska titlar som triggar igång denna klangliga alkemi: King tide, Liquid marble, Eleven gates, Exquisite corpse, Celestial mechanics, Clang & fury, Beast sampler.

En Hillborg-hit som genom åren färgat av sig väsentligt i annat han skrivit är körverket Mouyayoum. Musiken liknar mera en ljudskulptur än ett stycke musik. Hillborg söker sig bort från ordens intellektuella innebörd, och letar i stället klanger laddade med urtillståndets magi.

Många av hans färgrika och polerade klangytor har dessutom ett släktskap med impressionismen. Den luft han släpper in i den kompositoriska kokongen ger texturen en särskild lyskraft. Sångbarheten hör oskiljaktigt ihop med verkets titel. Musiken är bräddfylld av förnimmelser och känslor i ett tidlöst förflutet. Därför vet vi som publik inte om stycket är fem eller 25 minuter långt. Det tillhör en annan tidslighet.

Jag tänker även på gravitation. Musikens materia skapar, av fysikens lagar, sugande virvlar och energifält av egen kraft.

Som i uruppförandet av Filharmonikernas beställningsverk Beast Sampler. Något av elektronisk musik framförd på gammelvärldens stråk och blås.

Plötsligt händer det. Det är som om tennisfantasten Hillborg har tagit med sig bollsportens taktik in i konstmusiken. Varje låt har en handfull stenhårda serveäss och nervkittlande nätrullare. Det liknar ett break för nyskriven konstmusik.

Mikael Strömberg, Aftonbladet, 21 november 2014

Renée Fleming Meets Anders Hillborg

...This spring, Renée Fleming has curated a quartet of Carnegie Hall concerts, including a French song recital with Susan Graham, André Previn’s A Streetcar Named Desire, and a salute to turn-of-the-century Vienna. In between, this powerful evening with the New York Philharmonic demonstrated the virtuosity of the orchestra—confidently led by Alan Gilbert—and showed off a major new commission, The Strand Settings, from the Swedish composer Anders Hillborg (b. 1954). In addition, I’m happy to report, Fleming gave one of her most gleaming and sensitive performances.

Using texts by American poet Mark Strand, Hillborg has created a shimmering landscape of eloquence, unusual colors and mystery, and when coupled with Strand’s writing, the result makes potent listening. “The Black Sea” opens with an arresting, ethereal orchestral chord—impossible to dissect at first hearing, but all the more beautiful for that—and the soprano floating above in a luminous recitative as she gazes from a rooftop, looking out over the night sea. In the second part, “Dark Harbor XX,” the orchestra seems to remain almost motionless as the singer recounts memories of a past love.

Tempi become more animated in “Dark Harbor XXXV” (quoted above) and in the finale, “Dark Harbor XI,” one last reminiscence is buoyed by the ensemble’s sweeping texture, slowly turning and sparkling as if in twilight. The large orchestra—usually reined in at a dynamic level of no louder than mezzo-forte—is augmented by some fascinating percussion sonorities, including wind chimes and four wine glasses (a “glass harmonica”). With Ms. Fleming effortlessly gliding through the texts, and Gilbert and the ensemble creating magic, it was no surprise that everyone—including Hillborg and Strand—received huge ovations right before intermission.

Bruce Hodges, Seen and Heard International, May 10, 2013

And the dark became desire: Renée Fleming and the NYPhil at Carnegie Hall

 ...This unusually dark interpretation of Fountains of Rome set the stage well for The Strand Settings, the eerie cycle of Anders Hillborg. The songs' multivalence begins in the title; most obviously, perhaps, it could be descriptive: they set the poetry of Mark Strand, former Poet Laureate of the United States. But this meaning did not occur to me until a full day after the concert, for they are also settings dependent on the strand: a line washed by tides, a threshold, a place of encounters endlessly repeated, yet always elusive, subject to new interpretations. The first song in the cycle is called "The Black Sea"; the other three are taken from a cycle of poems called "Dark Harbor," yet rearranged to form new (and perhaps more hopeful) meanings.

The strings predominated in the settings like the pull of the tide, sometimes mimicking the mournful wail of an electric guitar, sometimes seeming to sigh with an almost human voice. Uncertain harmonies and a half-declaimed vocal line, declining to exploit the rich gleam of Fleming's voice, gradually unfolded into more complex orchestration, bassoons and glass harmonica echoing the sorrow and madness of many operatic loves, while the singer, in increasingly wide arcs of sound, invokes a lover who is perhaps only hallucinated, who perhaps has always been so. Fleming's diction was more precise than I've sometimes heard it, and she colored her voice with remarkable subtlety of expression, and infused it with remarkably complex yearning. The resolution apparently promised by the brighter harmonies and bright visions of the final song in the cycle is almost undone in its last line, in a vision not of transcendence but of transience. I'm tempted to describe the cycle as a sort of Wesendonck Lieder for the twenty-first century, simultaneously portraying and protesting a sense of imposed loneliness, expressing a longing for the almost unattainable, the infinitely desired other, the beloved.

Opera Obsession blog, April 28, 2013

Ruminating on Love and Desire

 ...The program, which opened with Respighi’s “Fountains of Rome” and ended with Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” (in Ravel’s familiar orchestration), featured the premiere of an impressive piece by the Swedish composer Anders Hillborg written for the soprano Renée Fleming, who is completing her Perspectives series at Carnegie Hall this season. The idea of commissioning Mr. Hillborg arose in Sweden during the summer of 2008, when Ms. Fleming performed a program of opera arias with Mr. Gilbert and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. Though five years from the conception to the premiere of a piece may seem like a long gestation period, it is not atypical in classical music.

“The Strand Settings,” a 24-minute song cycle on texts by the distinguished Canadian-born poet Mark Strand, was worth waiting for. At once atmospheric, elegiac and unsettling, the work was crafted with Ms. Fleming’s creamy voice in mind, and she sang beautifully.

Mr. Hillborg, 58, has had a diverse life in music. In his youth he played in rock bands while singing in choirs. At the conservatory in Stockholm he studied with formidable modernist composers but also immersed himself in experimental electronic music. In his best pieces these myriad influences are deftly blended into a distinctive voice.

Taken together, the four Strand poems selected for this cycle make a rumination on love and desire in its mysterious and acutely real dimensions. In the first, “The Black Sea,” the narrator climbs to the roof of a house to gaze at the sea during a “whispering night,” waiting for something, a sign, or someone. It is not clear.

Mr. Hillborg sets the words in a quasi-recitative style, though with fleeting lyrical phrases and bursts of agitation. The orchestra at first heaves with thick, subdued chords but soon settles into a shimmering, pungent sustained harmony. That shifting sonority, though transfixing, seems static. But listen closely and you hear inner voices colliding and astringent textures stacked thick with notes.

The next three poems are taken from Mr. Strand’s “Dark Harbor” series. “Dark Harbor XX” seems the lonely thoughts of someone experiencing a sensual kiss, or longing for one. The song continues the ruminative yet quietly dangerous mood already established. The final line is a question: “Is it you or the long compassionate wind/That whispers in my ear: alas, alas?” As the orchestra lingers on a tremulous harmony we hear penetrating soft, high tones from wineglass rims being rubbed with water.

In “Dark Harbor XXXV” the orchestra finally breaks loose into rising riffs and overlapping lines to convey the imagery of kisses “blown out of heaven,/Melting the moment they land.” In one surprisingly jazzy episode, the music breaks incongruously into what sounds like the fragment of a jaunty tune. It could be the “Anthem of Dark Harbor.”

During stretches of the final song, “Dark Harbor XI,” the vocal lines took Ms. Fleming from chesty low-voiced phrases into soaring highs, which she delivered with sensual sound and wistful resignation. This organic song cycle may seem accessible on the surface. But the music keeps its secrets to itself and makes you want to hear it again to figure out more. The ovation lasted five minutes, which does not happen often with new works...

Anthony Tommasini, New York Times, April 28, 2013

...The music struck the heart immediately. Mr. Hillborg’s soft, atmospheric opening seemed to leave no space in the Hall; rather, it pressed on the walls and opened the ceilings even higher. Ms. Fleming’s voice moved in and out of the musical texture, highlighting some of Mr. Strand’s phrases. With a recitative-like structure, Mr. Hillborg created an active dialogue between Ms. Fleming and the orchestra. As the orchestra played slow chord changes, Ms. Fleming sang over them at faster tempo.

When Ms. Fleming released her high notes, the orchestra swelled into distinctive new shapes. Hillborg’s exquisite third movement, based on a section of Mr. Strand’s longer poem Dark Harbor, showcased his instantly recognizable style as well as Ms. Fleming’s interpretive maturity. This wasn’t simply a recitation of poetry set to music; she seemed to invent the words and melodies moments before she sang them. Her personalized, almost conversational performance complemented the orchestra’s throbbing urgency.

Mr. Hillborg approached the text with humility. Not once did he obscure the poetry with excessive ornamentation; instead, the words shone. If it is possible to bring even more meaning to Strand’s work, Hillborg has done it. His composition had depth but not pretense; it was meditative but accessible.

Ellen Fishbein, Superconductor blog, April 27, 2013

Renée Fleming joins NY Phil at Carnegie Hall

 The evening was the third part of Renée Fleming’s Prospective Series which concludes May 4, 2013. But on the night of April 26, 2013, the focus was on the world premeire of Anders Hillborg’s piece for orchestra and solo soprano voice. And for an instant, the focus was on Ms. Fleming as she took the stage in a stunning, swirling concoction of a dress that deserved it’s own ovation. Her dress might also have been a means of foreshadowing with its swishing torrent of dark and light blues, and a long, flowing train.

I am always perplexed when there are electronic supertitles on display during a concert of an English setting. It is almost as if the point is not driven home hard enough that what you are hearing is, in fact, the English language. It is especially annoying when the concert is in an English speaking country. If the text is not served well, then the fault is that of the interpreter. Thankfully we did not have that problem. Ms. Fleming’s diction has not always been her strongest suit, but she emoted with such depth of passion from the text, that one did not need the floating poetry set below the proscenium arch. Said haunting text was the beautiful poetry of Canadian born Mark Strand picked by Ms. Fleming herself. She and the composer sorted through volumes of his work to produce the evenings song cycle.

The music of this co-commissioned piece was supplied by Swedish composer Anders Hillborg. Ms. Fleming has been a great supporter of new music over the course of her career, and had long been after Mr. Hillborg to create a new composition for orchestra and voice. After a lengthy process of searching for the right text and composing, the final end result was a triumph at best, and in every sense. Furthered by that great American institution of instruments lead by the wildly passionate Alan Gilbert.

The one thing that was lacking was the length of the piece. Four settings is far too short when the music is that gripping and fresh. Much like the first fruit of spring, after a long, harsh winter, one just wants to dig in and keep eating! That is exactly the feeling I had after listening to the final repeated refrain. Most modern atonal music of today feels so sporadic and unattached from the text. Mr. Hillborg’s music was the perfect fit to Mr. Strand’s words. He set the vocal line so closely to speech during the first set titled "The Black Sea" that the text sprang forth into the hall, and was alive in Ms. Fleming’s voice. There was no need for random octave leaps between vowels to express meaning, his music was so naturalistic and melodic. Profound without pretension, the piece came to its climax with the phrase, “Into the arms of strangers who step into their light, which is the mascara of Eden” during the third movement "Dark Harbor XXXV."

The composition was met with thunderous applause as all the creative forces joined together on stage to take their well deserved bow.

Jake Johansen, The Examiner, April 27, 2013

Fleming soars in premiere of new song cycle at Carnegie Hall

 ...in concert with the New York Philharmonic under Alan Gilbert on Friday, Fleming sang beautifully, looked as regal as ever in billowing layers of midnight-blue chiffon, and showed no interest in resting on her laurels. Instead, she reaffirmed her commitment to living music and artistic growth by giving the world premiere of The Strand Songs by Swedish composer Anders Hillborg, a work co-commissioned by the Philharmonic and Carnegie Hall.

The four songs in the cycle are based on poems by Mark Strand, a former U.S. poet laureate whose collection Blizzard of One won a 1999 Pulitzer Prize. While Hillborg’s settings have a moderate tessitura, stressing verbal clarity and largely eschewing vocal pyrotechnics, these qualities seem less a concession to a veteran singer than an apt response to Strand’s work, which is plain in diction but dense and challenging in its imagery. The uneasy hiss of high strings weaves its way through all four songs, in which the poetic “I” tells of “whispering” and “murmuring” nights, angels “chewing their tongues, not singing,” and “the flesh of clouds.” Hillborg’s orchestra includes a sort of glass harmonica (four wine glasses), an instrument notoriously hard to hear in modern concert halls, but whose ethereal sounds (and age-old bond with derangement and the music of the spheres) seemed to infuse the entire score.

That last image, fusing the wispy and the carnal, exemplifies the paradoxes at the heart of Strand’s verse. “The Black Sea,” the first song, in which “dark” becomes “desire” and “desire the arriving light,” inevitably brings to mind Tristan und Isolde, though Hillborg’s cycle begins and ends in E-flat, the key of watery depths in Wagner’s Ring der Nibelungen, and his gently declamatory vocal writing has nothing Wagnerian about it. Early on Fleming indulged in her familiar habit of overplaying single words (“night,” “sky,” “stars”) and pulling vocal taffy but quickly relaxed, her voice soaring over the groaning brass at the song’s climax. Her way with the cycle’s most overtly erotic passage—“you leaning down and putting / your mouth against mine” in “Dark Harbor XX”—was all the more telling for its chaste understatement, and she spun a luminous piano in the song’s closing phrases.

Fleming summoned bluesy tones and Hillborg a Bernstein-esque bustle for “Dark Harbor XXXV,” with its heavenly creatures “down by the bus terminal, hanging out.” Shards of bone-rattling, metallic noise broke through the score for “the pure erotic glory of death without echoes,” and singer and composer made an abrupt, heart-stopping end for “kisses blown out of heaven, / melting the moment they land.” Juxtaposing “a prodigal / overflowing of mildness” with blinding canicular light and happiness with “terrible omens of the end,” “Dark Harbor XI” is the most unsettling of the four songs, its airy arpeggios giving way in the closing measures to slithering strings and dreadful tone clusters. Diva, composer, poet, maestro, and band received long and rapturous ovations at the end of the twenty-odd minute cycle.

Marion Lignana Rosenberg, The Classical Review, April 27, 2013