About this Piece

Over his career, Swedish composer Anders Hillborg has created a vast catalog of choral, chamber, and orchestral pieces that have been performed around the world. The Los Angeles Philharmonic has commissioned and premiered two of his works: the purely orchestral Eleven Gates (2006), and Sirens (2011), for two sopranos, chorus, and orchestra. Sound Atlas, composed for orchestra in 2018, is an ethereal endeavor that simultaneously welcomes and warns its listener. Through its use of unconventional percussion, most notably the high-pitched glass harmonica, it creates an uneasy atmosphere. Discussing this tension in an interview with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Hillborg said: “When I compose, especially for orchestra, I like very much to create sounds that you can’t really identify.... I worked a lot with electronic music in the ’80s, and when I write for orchestra, I take many experiences from there. So I like the idea of creating a synthetic sound with acoustic means.” 

Hillborg elaborates on this blend of the synthetic and acoustic in his composer’s note: 

Sound Atlas is roughly divided into five sections with the following titles: 

1. Crystalline 

2. River of Glass 

3. Vaporised Toy Pianos 

4. Vortex 

5. Hymn 

The Glass Harmonica—Verrophone—along with the use of microtones in the strings, plays a significant role in this piece, contributing to the crystalline quality that is at the center of the sound world in it. 

After the Toy Pianos have “vaporised,” the crystalline character fades and the music is plunged into a soundscape of violent, whirling, convulsive masses of sound—Vortex. The music ascends from the whirlpool up to a brief crystalline moment, then plunges yet again into the abyss, to finally resolve into a solemn string hymn which concludes the piece.