Magnus Lindberg: publications of recent symphonic and chamber works
Recent months have seen the release of a collection of publications of Magnus Lindberg’s recent works including Serenades and Piano Concerto No.3 in the prestigious Hawkes Pocket Score series, alongside performing materials of chamber works Santa Fe Project and Quintet.
The catalogue of Finnish composer Magnus Lindberg is dominated by orchestral music together with chamber works, and past months have seen new publications in both genres. This collection of new Lindberg releases from Boosey & Hawkes includes two of the composer’s largest-scale recent scores, the orchestral Serenades premiered by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and his Piano Concerto No.3 toured widely by virtuoso soloist Yuja Wang.
Dating from 2020, Serenades was written in response to a three-way commission from the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Chicago Symphony Orchestra and NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra. The 15-minute score, composed as a single movement span, is built from a series of instrumental tableaux – hence the plural Serenades of the title. Lindberg describes how “when I was asked to write a serenade, I began with a musical idea that deep down has a slow-moving feeling, but then takes off in many contrasting directions, with big cuts and quick shifts… in the end, the serenade I composed is a wild one.”
"With a shimmer of strings, ominous brass and the moth-wing flurries of woodwinds, Serenades drew us into the depths of the night... the chameleon Finnish composer has written a visceral, turbulent nightscape."
The Times
Piano Concerto No.3 was premiered in San Francisco in 2022 and has since travelled on to Toronto, New York, Paris, Aix-en-Provence, Lyon, Hamburg, Rome and London and Brighton, with leading orchestras and conductors and Yuja Wang as soloist. Lindberg describes this epic concerto, cast in three large-scale movements making up its 32-minute duration: “It is almost like an opera – it’s so rich in its storytelling… I would almost call it three concertos in one piece… I have a chart of eight different characters that I’ve arranged like a William Faulkner novel: There are many stories going on at the same time – you present one, move on to the next one, then return to another one. Every time a story returns, it has something new to say.”
“..alternately grand and intimately beautiful. There is a true dialogue between soloist and orchestra, both of whom play almost continuously, except for two virtuosic cadenzas. The score conveys lush grandeur. There’s harmonic tartness, but never abrasiveness: one hears Lindberg’s affection for Bartók, but maybe Rachmaninov, too… it recalls the grand concertos of yore. It’s ravishing, as was Wang’s playing.”
Financial Times
As well as the Hawkes Pocket Score of Piano Concerto No.3, new publications include a score with the solo part alongside a piano reduction of the orchestral accompaniment, and the solo part alone both as a physical and a digital release.
In the chamber music sphere, the new releases include two scores composed by Lindberg for the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival in the USA. Quintet, dating from 2023, was written for piano and four wind instruments – oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon and is published as a piano score and wind parts, with the piano score also available separately both physical and digital. Santa Fe Project is a duo for cello and piano, written in 2006 for Anssi Karttunen and the composer himself on piano, with performing materials now available on sale.
> Serenades Hawkes Pocket Score (979-0-060-15067-8)
> Piano Concerto No.3 Hawkes Pocket Score (979-0-060-15054-8)
> Piano Concerto No.3 Two piano reduction (979-0-060-15073-9)
> Piano Concerto No.3 Solo Piano score (979-0-060-15055-5)
> Piano Concerto No.3 Solo Piano score (digital) (979-0-060-15072-2)
> Quintet Piano score and wind parts (979-0-060-15063-0)
> Quintet Solo Piano score (979-0-060-15063-0)
> Quintet Solo Piano score (digital) (979-0-060-15064-7)
> Sante Fe Project Piano score and Cello part (979-0-060-12505-8)
> Explore a full list of Magnus Lindberg publications
> Further information on Work: Serenades
Composer Photo: Philip Gatward
