Magnus Lindberg

Seht die Sonne

Composed in 2007 to commission by the Stiftung Berliner Philharmoniker and the San Francisco Symphony. Whilst the work's title is taken from the last section of Schoenberg's Gurrelieder it makes no explicit musical references to that piece, yet it conveys some of the ecstatic sweep of the Schoenberg. The work is formed in three movements without break, and the orchestration is typical of the composer - brilliant, variegated, and replete with surprising yet wonderfully effective juxtapositions. As reported by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, “… a work that liberally mixes the exquisite colours of the orchestra … and that in its luminescent excess is indeed reminiscent of Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder: as a revolving sphere of sound in which opulence follows upon opulence." The Financial Times said, “… an extravagant and glittering piece on a grand scale, full of bold gestures and big effects… The second movement ends with a solo cello cadenza so lengthy that it is almost a miniature concerto, a mournful lament full of ethereal harmonics. The third movement is the work’s darkest, opening in the lower depths of the bass registers and rising to a howl of anguish before settling into a pensive chorale and slipping unobtrusively into silence.”