Cello Concerto, Op. 30 (2003)

Rarely does one hear such a virtuosic piece...

'...the concerto makes an immediate impression as well written, imaginatively scored and rich in musical ideas...John Storgards encouraged a characterful orchestral response, notable for its subtle dynamic shading...But with its crepuscular colouring,...its menancing rhythmic tread and its growling, prowling, pouncing cello line, the concerto is more like a full-scale nightmare. Frighteningly intense at times...it seems to mask dark feelings...'

IF OUR birth is but a sleep and a forgetting, as Wordsworth would have us believe, then we certainly need a lullaby or two to help us along the way. And that’s exactly what the Icelandic composer Haflidi Hallgrímsson has provided in his new Cello Concerto, given its UK premiere on Friday by Truls Mørk and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in Glasgow’s Academy Concert Hall.
This is a remarkable new addition to the cello repertoire. A lullaby, of course, has to be sung. And Hallgrímsson, for six years principal cello of the SCO before composition irresistibly took over, knows that singing is just what the cello does best. A fragment from a lullaby by Grieg, which Hallgrímsson played on his cello as a child, kept returning to trouble him. And it is this elusive spectre which haunts his dark and troubled concerto.
Comfort there may be, in the long melismas of melody, and in the tonally ballasted harmony which dominates in this continuous 25-minute single movement. But, as the shadowy opening pulse of harp and double-bass warns us, this lullaby prefigures and contains its own nightmares. The dappling of a marimba creates the first frisson of disquiet. It heralds the start of many passages of rapid, dislocating figuration, of tense tremolandi, glissandi and haunting harmonics - all of them a real nightmare for the soloist.
Truls Mørk, helped by Hallgrímsson’s own fastidious orchestration, gave an impassioned virtuoso performance. Much of the concerto’s excitement comes from the fight the soloist has to put up to stay above the orchestral water. This is, after all, a concerto for orchestra as well, as the SCO, robustly conducted by John Storgards, fearlessly revealed.
Even in the cadenza, the soloist is threatened by timpani and snare drum. His response - and, perhaps, Hallgrímsson might be suggesting, that of beleaguered humankind, too - is to turn back to song, plunging into the deepest regions of the orchestra, only to resurface, quietly singing into silence.
This, Hallgrímsson’s second cello concerto, and one of his finest works to date, was set into relief by sensitive programming. The evening began with more dark orchestral singing, in the opening cello chant of the Latvian composer Peteris Vasks’s eight-minute dawn chorus of string writing, Cantabile. One of Vasks’s earliest works, its debt to Lutoslawski is clear in its aleatory counterpoint,an ecstatic free-for-all for 16-part strings.
Then, as if to emphasise Hallgrímsson’s subtly variegated sound palette, Grieg’s bombastic Symphony in C minor ("must never be performed", the composer wrote at the top of his youthful manuscript) ended the evening in a blast of shameless sound and fury.

'...a remarkable new addition to the cello repetoire...one of his finest works to date...'

'In its handling of light and shade, this single movement concerto has parallels with the dramatic chiaroscuros of Rembrandt and Caravaggio...The result is a parade of texture and nuance...'

'...exquisitely-textured structure...is a work of haunting beauty. Instantly characterised by its slow, soft, deep pulsing tread, the concerto...generates an unfailingly evocative sound world...The music is superbly sustained in its overall mood. Even the soloist's flickering adventures into edginess, animation, drama and intensity are fleeting, as the music consistently returns to its lyrical core and its dark, steady pulse. The ending, with the cello sinking gently to the bottom of its register in a delicately-orchestrated cloud of soft, magical sound, is amazing, ethereal and mesmeric.'

'The solo writing is thoroughly idiomatic - a floating, elegiac opening theme emerges with delicious subtlety over Hallgrímsson's brilliantly balanced and fragile orchestration.'

The Ultima Festival opened with the Oslo Philharmonic in a concert with excellent soloists and the orchestra, conducted admirably by Christian Eggen was in fine form.

The Icelandic composer, Haflidi Hallgrimsson’s Cello Concerto with Truls Mørk as soloist was imbued with power and authority. The assurance and power of Mørk’s playing was totally compelling within the musical whole and the performance was very convincing.