If it were possible for a CD to receive a rating that's off the top of the scale of five stars, this one would deserve it....
Perhaps most astonishing and intense is Anders Hillborg's extended aria ¨...lontana in sonno...¨, a reflection on romantic passion and its loss, using sonnets by Petrarch written just before and just after the death of his beloved Laura. While Hillborg's writing is highly sophisticated, he uses the purest and most viscerally communicative language to express the poet's grief. The work begins with a striking vocal solo, accompanied for three minutes by a single drone note played on a glass harmonica.
The drone is a recurring motif; the voice will emerge from a single instrumental sound, or a solo instrument may appear almost imperceptibly from under the voice, creating timbral shifts that are aurally subtle, but emotionally cataclysmic. The music builds in an intensity that's simultaneously chaste and passionate. While the vocal writing is not conventionally virtuosic in its coloratura demands, the sustained, sensuous lines require the kind of control that only the most disciplined singer can summon, and von Otter's performance is simply stunning.
Stephen Eddins, The AllMusic Classical Editors' Favorites of 2008
"For me the clear winner here is Anders Hillborg's "lontana in sonno". Anne Sofie von Otter is at her focused best here - her vibrato-less pitch perfect throughout."
BBC Music Magazine, Vocal Proms 2008 issue, August 2008
Hillborg's ". lontana in sonno ." from 2003, is an extraordinary piece that uses a glass harmonica as part of its orchestration to create a spooky, gleaming, unearthly soundscape. It unfolds slowly, starting with a deliberately paced, plainchant-style vocal melody, accompanied only by a sustained G drone. The effect is oddly serene, but the piece offers no easy consolation, as per its text: "Do not hope ever to see me on earth again," says the dead girl to her bereaved lover in his dreams. (The text is by Petrarch, the fourteenth-century Italian scholar and poet.) Von Otter's celestial singing against Hillborg's harmonically dense but crystalline textures sounds like an illuminating voice from the beyond, penetrating with pure clarity through the landscape of a previously incomprehensible dream.
Joshua Rosenblum, Opera News online
Anders Hillborg's "...lontana in sonno..." is a soundworld of scudding strings and introspective horns.
Anna Picard, independent.co.uk, July 6 2008
Det här är årets hittills mest epokgörande CD när det gäller svensk musik. Orkestersångerna av Laci Boldemann, Hans Gefors och Anders Hillborg, speciellt av de två senare, är av absolut världsklass och framförda därefter med en mångsidigt lyhörd Anne Sofie von Otter, som tycks kunna göra precis vad hon vill med sin röst. Göteborgs Symfoniorkester under Kent Nagano ligger inte en millimeter efter. Suveränt.
Helsingborgs Dagblad, 6/5 2008 - Tommie Ling
...Hillborgs Petrarcasättning börjar enkelt nog i en medeltidsinfluerad melodi för solostämman. Men snart sugs rösten in i orkesterns klangfält och blir ett med massan i detta verk om sorg och förlust som på typiskt Hillborgmaner är samtidigt kristallskört och robust och som skickligt vrider sig ur varje förutsägbarhetsfälla.
Dagens Nyheter, 16/4 2008 - Sara Norling