Norrbotten NEO are a contemporary music ensemble based in Piteå in Sweden, founded in 2007. A septet of winds, piano and string trio form the core ensemble to which they add – as on this new recording – whatever other instruments (bass clarinet, trumpet, horn, trombone, percussion, double bass) they require. Previous albums, of music by Eliasson (7/17) and Francisco Coll’s Turia (3/21), were well received in these pages.

For Klas Torstensson’s cycle Lantern Lectures (1999-2002), Norrbotten NEO expand to 15 players, all functioning in some degree as soloists and ensemble players. Torstensson (b1951), Swedish-born but Dutch-resident, composed the set both to satisfy specific commissions from several first-rate new-music groups – Montreal’s Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Klangforum Wien, KammarensembleN in Stockholm and Asko in Amsterdam – and a need to decompress compositionally after completing his opera The Expedition (about an ill-fated balloon flight to the Arctic). Each commissioned movement took inspiration from the natural world – respectively ‘Solid Rocks I’, ‘Solid Rocks II’ (inspired by the stratifications of the Earth’s crust), the wonderfully multifaceted ‘Aurora Borealis’ (arguably the most poetic depiction of the Northern Lights since Saariaho’s Lichtbogen) and ‘Giant’s Cauldron’ – and each was premiered independently.

Torstensson conceived these movements as part of a larger sequence, however, taking his cue from the old lecture format with slides illustrating the discourse. Each movement is preceded by a Brass Link for the horn, trumpet and trombone, which together bind the cycle together, not unlike the Promenades in Mussorgsky’s Pictures. Lantern Lectures is an involving listen – especially in this virtuoso account from Norrbotten NEO, who have toured the cycle – though it took me several hearings to get into. Harmonically, the music, which relies a deal on ostinatos for momentum, is often rather static; while that may work out point-to-point, over the course of 70 minutes it is less successful. Still, the cycle is a dynamic and engaging work, splendidly performed in top-notch sound.