Soon a new album is to be released featuring three new Danish viola concertos written especially for Rafaell Altino by the composers Soren Nils Eichberg, Christian Winther Christensen and Karsten Fundal. In the three concertos, the viola moves from intimate lyricism to dazzling virtuosity, weaving its way through both tender dialogues and dramatic exchanges with the orchestra. Altino's masterful playing brings out each composer's distinctive voice and reveals new facets of the viola.

The album is released as a digital-only release on 9 January. Pre-save it to your streaming library here.

A colossal musical colour palette

Where the violin soars above an orchestra, the viola is more deliciously ambiguous as it cuts through the middle of the orchestra. Often we are told of the viola's chocolatey warmth and depth, but on this recording we also experience the instrument's ability to fire and provoke the orchestra, all made possible by the instrument's range and big-boned sound.

In these three new concertos, the viola appears by turns a neo-Romantic hero, an uninterested loner and a shadowy foil. All three scores are united by Rafaell Altino's essential role in their genesis and by his colossal technical armoury, colour palette and sense of character. On these world premiere recordings, he is at home with his colleagues in the Odense Symphony Orchestra.

In the maelstrom of the orchestra

With a wide range of expressions, the three concertos make a significant addition to the viola repertoire. Christian Winther Christensen's music is recognisable as it lures listeners into a charming and distinctive hinterland, inviting deep listening. At the premiere, Politiken's reviewer described how Winther Christensen turns things upside down "so that all the small incidental sounds that inevitably arise when playing an instrument become the main focus".

Karsten Fundal has an unusual sense of timbre and colour. He often explores impressionistic techniques and lets light and shadow mingle across a blurred palette. Fundal's viola concerto opens with a clear-cut, almost romantic melody from the soloist, but it is not long before it is drawn into something more demonic, deep and ambiguous.

With Soren Nils Eichberg, the viola is at the vortex of the orchestra, right at its heart. Much of Eichberg's music is driven by a fierce dramatic impulse, and the title of the concerto reveals his fascination with forces of natural destruction. Charybdis is the name of an Italian maelstrom, while the subtitle Wirbelrausch can be translated as vortex rush.