Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto is a longtime friend of American composer Nico Muhly, and their collaboration was cemented Friday evening at the Ordway in the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra's U.S. premiere of Muhly's new violin concerto.
Entitled "Shrink," the piece is for stringed instruments only and received a taut, incisive performance from the SPCO players.
Kuusisto's solo part bobbed and wove its way amid the pulsing textures of Muhly's opening movement, one moment interweaving with the accompaniment, the next cutting free with jagged motifs and angular lunges toward the top end of the instrument.
Rhythm continued to play a bigger part than melody in the calmer middle movement, although Kuusisto's extended duo with concertmaster Kyu-Young Kim had the intricacy of needlepoint tapestry and a keening fragility.
The finale — "short, nervous and scattered," as Muhly describes it — returned to an obsessive focus on driving rhythmic patterns and sharp, staccato writing in the solo part.
Kuusisto nailed its technical challenges, but for all the hyperactivity and bustle, the effect was impassive.
The second U.S. premiere of the evening — "Paradisfåglar II" by Swedish composer Andrea Tarrodi — plowed a very different type of furrow in a version for full orchestra of a piece written for strings 12 years ago.
The eight-minute work was inspired by a BBC Planet Earth film about birds of paradise, and Tarrodi mimicked their billing and cooing in a slew of layered string glissandos, with twittering responses in the woodwind instruments.