Though they are not the rarities they used to be, new works from Hans Abrahamsen are still not-to-be-missed events. Now in his 60s, the Danish composer seems to settle new musical territory in every piece he composes, remaking his language and reassessing his debts to the past at every step. His latest score is an orchestral song cycle, Let Me Tell You, tailor-made for the phenomenal soprano Barbara Hannigan, who gave the world premiere last December in Berlin with Andris Nelsons and brought it to Birmingham with the same conductor and the CBSO, where it was framed between Mendelssohn and Richard Strauss.

Let Me Tell You is based on Paul Griffiths' oulipian novel of the same name, which uses only the words that Shakespeare gives to Ophelia in Hamlet to create an extended, more complex portrait of the character and her life. Griffiths and Hannigan worked with Abrahamsen to establish the text of this spare monologue, which divides into three parts. Each part is introduced with the phrase of the title and deal with the protagonist's past, her present, in which she is deliriously in love, and what might happen to her in the future.

The result is ravishingly and astonishingly beautiful. Abrahamsen's vocal writing makes much use of stile concitato, the repeated-note emphases that hark back to Monteverdi, and also exploits Hannigan's ability to rise effortlessly to the limits of the soprano range. And he surrounds the voice with glistening, deliquescent textures that can seem almost weightless until a growling line in the bass brings them fluttering to earth. The music sometimes seems as much an exercise in memory as the text, touching on familiar, tonal shapes and harmonies without being explicit and embracing microtones in the final section.

Hannigan soared above it all with consummate grace and ease, while Nelsons and the orchestra made every corner of the score shine. It's a very special piece indeed.

• On BBC iPlayer until 25 June.