BBC Music Magazine: Critic's Choice; Musik Web International: outstanding; Penguin Guide 3 stars; Klassik Heute 10/10/10. This recording brings together three distinctive Swedish trumpet concertos written for Håkan Hardenberger during the 1990s, each exploring the instrument far beyond its traditional heroic role. Daniel Börtz’s Songs and Dances unfolds with an almost operatic sense of narrative, balancing ritualistic rhythm with introspective lyricism and giving the trumpet a deeply vocal character. Folke Rabe’s Sardine Sarcophagus combines surreal imagery, subtle Mahlerian echoes and luminous orchestral colour in music that is at once mysterious, vital and reflective. Jan Sandström’s Second Trumpet Concerto introduces a more playful and open emotional world, shaped by warmth, humour and an almost childlike freedom of movement, while still demanding extraordinary virtuosity from the soloist. Throughout the programme, Hardenberger’s finely controlled tone and instinctive sense of communication reveal the expressive breadth of contemporary trumpet writing. Rather than treating the soloist as a figure set against the orchestra, these concertos create an ongoing dialogue between individual voice and orchestral texture. The Malmö Symphony Orchestra and Gilbert Varga respond with clarity, energy and sensitivity, allowing each work’s distinct atmosphere to emerge naturally while preserving the strong sense of collaboration at the heart of the music.