Munich’s Musica Viva concert series began in 1945 as an avenue for performances of new music, much of which had been banned during the Nazi regime. Today, in conjunction with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks (BRSO), it remains a significant, high-profile international forum for contemporary composition and includes a CD series. 

The latest recording, #47, is devoted to distinguished Australian composer Liza Lim AM (b. 1966) and features three orchestral works composed over a 20-year period. A Sutured World (2024) for cello and orchestra was written for German-French cellist Nicolas Altstaedt at his request and as part of a commission for the BRSO. Lim’s compositional preoccupation with transcultural spirituality is present here through the lens of wound healing with stitches (sutures).

Like Kintsugi, the ancient Japanese method of repairing broken pottery with visible gold seams, A Sutured World honours scars that constitute new attributes of beauty, rather than imperfections or flaws to be hidden. Sensitivity, instability and the idea of ‘making hallucination audible’ are rendered musically with close attention to the almost infinite timbral possibilities of the cello –...