Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra & Malin Broman - Breaking Waves (2025) [Hi-Res]

Three works by three women composers from three different countries, each piece with its own original idiom, are performed here by the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra under the direction of its dynamic conductor and artistic director Malin Broman. Three works that assuredly deserve a wider audience! The Sea Sketches by Welsh composer Grace Williams open the programme. Inspired by the beaches of Glamorganshire and by its seascape, this five-movement work seems in constant motion and evolution. One can practically taste the salt spray and feel the power of the waves.

The second work is Grayna Bacewiczs Fourth String Quartet, played here in an arrangement for string orchestra. Bacewicz was an important figure on the Polish music scene in the mid-20th century, and her quartet is an approachable work something that has undoubtedly contributed to making it her best-known composition with influences of folk music and passages which, according to Malin Broman, can only be described as heavenly. Vienna-born Johanna Mller-Hermanns String Quartet, also in an arrangement for string orchestra, concludes the programme. Exciting, beautiful and powerful, this work with its post-romantic language is a testimony to the golden age of Vienna, when the music of Mahler, Strauss and her teacher Zemlinsky reigned supreme.