Wire and String is a musical portrait of the internationally renowned contemporary Norwegian composer Rolf Wallin. The disc presents three works: “Imella”, a newly-written fiddle concerto, the album’s title piece for sinfonietta, and Drei Gedichte von Rainer Maria Rilke for soprano and chamber orchestra.

The Bodø Sinfonietta is conducted by Christian Eggen, and the soloists are Susanne Lundeng (fiddle) and soprano Siri Torjesen. As is often the case with the compositions of Rolf Wallin, on this new album we hear folk music interacting with contemporary idioms. The concerto "Imella" ('in-between') was commissioned by the Bodø Sinfonietta. It borrows its title, and also the titles of its individual movements, from the debut novel by the American author Ben Marcus. This wonderful and highly unusual book describes a world that defies earthly laws of nature, but that still seems to have its own set of laws and logic, consistent, yet ungraspable. The Rilke poems used in the Drei Gedichte are very different in terms of form, subject and atmosphere. Liebes-Lied is about deep and strong but painful love, Buddha in der Glorie is an account of religious ecstasy, and Slußstück is about death, existing right in the midst of us, in the middle of life.