Kaija Saariaho (b. 1952) is among the most prominent names in contemporary music scene today. This new album by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hannu Lintu includes world première recordings of three works by Saariaho featuring bass-baritone Gerald Finley and harpist Xavier de Maistre as soloists. True Fire is a six-movement song cycle that was written to a commission from the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the NDR Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestre National de France, for baritone Gerald Finley with an original idea to explore the scope of the baritone voice. The texts conclusively determined what the vocal expression would be like and how the details in the musical material would shape up. The disparate texts chosen by Saariaho in fact have a common underlying theme: the status of humankind surrounded by nature, our observations of it and our belonging to it. Saariaho’s orchestral triptych Orion (2002) is one of her most performed works. Orion as a celestial phenomenon is showcased in the middle movement, Winter Sky. In 2013, Saariaho rescored this movement for a smaller orchestra, and to distinguish it from the original she gave it a title in French with the same meaning, Ciel d’hiver. It joins the series of works by Saariaho that are in one way or another inspired by things in sky and space. Trans for harp and orchestra is the composer’s latest addition to a series of concertos. It was written to a joint commission from the Suntory Foundation for Arts, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Tonhalle Orchestra in Zurich, Radio France and the Hessen Radio Orchestra. The premiere was given by Xavier de Maistre in Tokyo in August 2016.

Ondine releases the long-awaited second instalment of Kaija Saariaho’s (b. 1958) chamber works with the award-winning Meta4 string quartet. The recording also includes three chamber music songs together with soprano Pia Freund. Kaija Saariaho (b. 1958) is one of the most important Finnish contemporary composers. She is equally known for her operas, the oratorio La Passion de Simone, orchestral works and concertos and also for rich small-scale works. Saariaho’s instrumental style is particularly richly manifested in her works for strings, where she makes use of a variety of playing techniques.

This is the first of two releases of Chamber Works for Strings by Kaija Saariaho, and also a tribute to the composer Kaija Saariaho who turned 60 on 14th of October 2012. Saariaho is renowned across the world for her vivid orchestration. Her chamber works highlight her ability to create unique sound worlds with only a few instruments. Here she also adds live electronics to create a unique colour.

Resonance Lines, a term borrowed loosely from physics, refers to the energy emitted or absorbed by an atom as it transitions between different energy states. This is a unique and innate quality for each type of atom that can only be measured and observed under the right enabling circumstances. An ideal artistic collaboration feels like the discovery and realization of deeply held potential for shared creativity—a sympathetic resonance or surge of energy in the colloquial sense—that is revealed when the right conditions are in place. It may feel lucky or it may feel destined, and in special cases, the “resonating” artists are able to nurture and develop their complementary qualities with lasting effect. This album is a collection of music grown of such pairings, collaborations between composers and cellists joined by shared experiences that lead to creative sparks, unique musical gestures, and new sound worlds.

REVIEW:

Despite featuring works created centuries apart, Resonance Lines is distinguished by a remarkable degree of uniformity. That’s attributable to three things in particular: first, Hannah Collins’ cello is the sole instrument involved; second, the cellist brings a deep level of conviction to all six pieces; and third, each of them makes distinct references to music from the past, a move that helps collapse temporal boundaries between the pieces and reveals how the composers built on their personal musical histories with the creation of something new. Collins also has personal connections to the material, which amplifies their resonance all the more.

Every performance on the sixty-five-minute release is so engrossing, one quickly loses sight of the fact that the recording is the product of a single person and instrument. No supplemental effects are used, and neither are they needed when Collins is involved. Solo recordings expose the performer most nakedly, but she in no way suffers as a result. One comes away from the release with a heightened appreciation for her as both cellist and collaborator.

-- Textura

A 2020 GRAMMY Nominee for Best Classical Compendium!

Several of Kaija Saariaho’s works are named after natural phenomena that serve as a starting point to her compositional process. Composed in 1998, Neiges was inspired by various qualities of snow and explores instrumental languages and colors similar to those found in her earlier works. On the present album the piece is heard in its never-before recorded version for twelve cellos, performed by the cellists of the Oslo Philharmonic. Another source of inspiration has been medieval literature, which formed a point of departure for Graal Théâtre, the first concerto Saariaho wrote, as well as for the recent Vers toi qui es si loin (2018). Recorded for the first time here, the piece is a transcription, made for the violinist Peter Herresthal, of an aria from the opera L’Amour de loin. These two works for violin and orchestra bookend this amply filled disc, and frame Circle Map, a work in six movements for large orchestra.

Permeating the work are six short poems by the 13th-century Persian poet Rumi, providing inspiration through their essence and vivid imagery, but also part of the musical material by way of a recording of them recited in Persian. This recording forms the raw material for the electronics included in the work, but also for much of the writing for the orchestra, for instance in terms of pitches and intonations. All four works are conducted by Clément Mao Takacs, who has collaborated extensively with Kaija Saariaho and conducted her music across Europe and in the U.S.A.

REVIEW:

Performances could scarcely be bettered. Peter Herresthal finds greater expressive variety in Graal Théâtre than Gidon Kremer (the only other account with full orchestra), with Clément Mao-Takacs making more of those emotional contrasts in Circle Map than Susanna Mälkki. The Oslo Philharmonic evince all the clarity and fastidiousness this music requires, heard to advantage in an opulent yet well-defined acoustic. Disc and booklet are presented in BIS’s current Ekopak format, which looks as stylish as the music contained within is compelling.

– Gramophone

On Remembering, the Danish cellist Jakob Kullberg continues his collaborations with two of the foremost Nordic composers: Per Nørgård and Kaija Saariaho. Praised internationally for his performances of the modern cello concerto, Kullberg regards the concerto form as the encounter of an individual soloist with the sound world of a composer. With living composers this approach often results in an unusual degree of collaboration, as the works gathered here bear witness to. Since 1999, Kullberg has enjoyed a close and unique partnership with Nørgård which has resulted in a large number of works. Between, the opening work on the album, hails from a time before this, but Nørgård’s viola concerto Remembering Child in its version for the cello is very much an example of Kullberg’s process. He has not only transferred the concerto to his own instruments, but has also – in consultation with the composer – written his own cadenza as well as added details to the score. Likewise, at a climactic point exactly halfway through Saariaho’s concerto Notes on Light, Kullberg creates an expressive space of his own, with a two-minute cadenza he has composed himself. In this work, as well as in Nørgård’s Between, Kullberg is supported by the BBC Philharmonic, with Sinfonia Varsovia appearing in the closing concerto.

Hailed as an “epic traversal of solo violin repertoire” and a “monumental achievement” (Chicago Tribune), American violinist Jennifer Koh’s complete Bach & Beyond recordings, pairing J.S. Bach’s violin sonatas and partitas with 20th- and 21st-century works inspired by Bach’s groundbreaking masterpieces, are now available in a convenient, economical boxed set offering all three albums for the price of two. Bach & Beyond Part 1 features Koh’s “alluring performances” (The New York Times) of Bach’s Partitas Nos. 2 and 3, Eugène Ysaÿe’s Sonata No. 2, Kaija Saariaho’s Nocturne, and the world-premiere recording of Missy Mazzoli’s Dissolve, O My Heart, commissioned for Koh by the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The Newark Star-Ledger cited the violinist’s “distinctive voice over a range of styles.” Toronto’s The Whole Note said of Bach & Beyond Part 2, “Koh, as always, is superb, her intelligence and interpretation always matching her outstanding technique” in Bach’s Sonata No. 1 and Partita No. 1, Bela Bartok’s Sonata for Solo Violin Sz. 117, BB 124, and Saariaho’s Frises. Koh’s Bach & Beyond Part 3 earned BBC Music Magazine’s and ClassicsToday.com’s highest ratings for performance and recording quality. The Strad admired Koh’s “eloquent, artful, yet unadorned playing” in Bach’s Sonatas Nos. 2 and 3, Luciano Berio’s Sequenza VIII, and the world-premiere recording of John Harbison’s For Violin Alone, written for Koh. AllMusic said, “Koh’s series is highly recommended to those in search of an experience that will reward repeated hearings.” Audiophile Audition called it a “remarkable three-disc effort, recommended to all with a good degree of urgency.”

Excerpts of reviews from previously released volumes included in this set:

Bach & Beyond, Part 1

Koh makes short work of the Bach pieces—not in a bad sense: she just nails these works with a confident technique and a free-flowing, un-mannered style that remains true to Bach yet reminds us that a modern violinist is at the helm. Although ostensibly “modern”, the works by Saariaho and Mazzoli still incorporate time-honored traditions of solo-violin writing and don’t stray into what some might call “experimental” territory. These are both very ingratiating and accessible works to anyone who appreciates interesting, involving, intelligently written new violin music.

– ClassicsToday.com (10/10)

Bach & Beyond, Part 2

Koh’s Bach is amazing as usual–so fluid and delivered with such a sensitively nuanced, confident authority. A personality emerges: is it Koh? is it Bach? It’s either or both, but ultimately, who cares? This is exceptional Bach playing. Throughout, Koh is in command, from the dazzling explications of the Bartók Fuga and Presto movements, to the sometimes frighteningly audacious dynamic and timbral assertions of the Saariaho.

– ClassicsToday.com (10/10)

The recording project Northscapes weaves works-from the first decades of the twenty-first century by composers from the Nordic and Baltic countries of Europe-into a tapestry of soundscapes, vibrating between landscape and the imagination, between the external and internal, between nature and psyche. What these works for piano solo share is a particular attunement to nature, reverberating out of the ever-present reservoir of pagan myths, legends, and folk music of the region. Their sensitivity to the sonic environment allows these composers to explore the liminal space dividing yet connecting landscape, soundscape, and mindscape.

More than mere musical "representations" of the striking natural landscapes of the North, each work, in it's own way, attempts to transform the natural world into a sonic landscape, a mindscape, into imaginary geographies. More than simply pastoral nostalgia, these sonic meditations on nature reach beyond the physical to the spiritual, probing the limit dividing the objective and subjective. Whether it is vast cosmic space or the intimate, interiority of the expressive voice, these works harness the power of music to probe the emotional contours of the tension between world and mind.

Haunted by landscapes colored by memory, fantasy, dreams, decay and infused with emotion, this music shifts consciousness through a transformational synthesis of landscape, soundscape, and mindscape - a shift from imaginary soundscapes to soundscapes of the imagination. In the hands of Lithuanian pianist Ieva Jokubaviciute, Northscapes is a sonic Aurora Borealis, Northern Lights of the ear and mind. -- Christopher Zimmerman

REVIEWS:

A superb recital disc from a quite exceptionally talented pianist…I was consistently won over by the fabulous talents of Jokubaviciute. The representative of her agency described her in an email introducing this recording as “one hell of a pianist”. For once, such a comment is an understatement!

-- MusicWeb International

This fascinating, unusual and at times enthralling selection is performed with a great balance of precision, understanding and respect. Importantly for a program in which textural considerations are central, Northscapes is beautifully recorded with warmth, plenty of space and no brassiness in the upper registers.

-- Limelight

It is a fascinating, well-balanced programme, played with engrossingly undemonstrative virtuosity…Jokubaviciute navigates the contrasting demands of each work with hugely impressive skill and Sono Luminus’s sound is superb. This is an enthralling programme from the northern world that no listener wary of contemporary music need be fearful of (Vasks’s nostalgically evocative score, for instance), though demands are sometimes made of their ears. Recommended.

-- Gramophone

Producer Bob Attiyeh writes: This album helps honor and celebrate the upcoming 50th Anniversary of the extraordinary Takács Quartet.

Bryce Dessner’s Circles for String Quartet and Bandoneón opens our album on track 1. Luminous, track 2 on our album, explodes with Clarice’s interpretation of the life-affirming power of Brazilian jazz.  The percussive piano introduction launches the listener into the joyous syncopated rhythms and arching melodic lines associated with the genre. Clarice, performing both voice and piano in this version, wrote Luminous as part of her Pendulum Suite. Julien’s Meditation No. 1, track 3 on our album, continues the trajectory initiated by Astor Piazzolla and Dino Saluzzi when they launched the bandoneón beyond its earlier role in Argentine folk music.

Cravo e Canela (Clove and Cinnamon) follows on track 4. This is a song by Milton Nascimento, one of Brazil’s most celebrated songwriters. Clarice’s arrangement and performance breathes fresh energy into the song through her improvisation and innovative vocal techniques. This was a treat to record, as I think you will understand when you listen. J and Helen Schlichting kindly enabled Yarlung to commission Constellation, a three movement work for violin and piano, performed together in this recording on track 5.  Clarice wrote for Harumi on violin and for herself on piano. The work celebrates Clarice’s nuclear family of four.

Harumi has always loved the music of Kaija Saariaho and suggested recording her Nocturne for solo violin as a part of this project. Saariaho wrote Nocturne in 1994 in preparation for her violin concerto Graal théâtre. She dedicated Nocturne to Witold Lutoslawski. I knew that Saariaho was struggling with terminal brain cancer and she died on June 2nd, 2023. I loved her and miss her and dedicate this album to Kaija Saariaho, her husband Jean-Baptiste Barrière, and their wonderful family.

Clarice’s Clash, our final track on the album, is the hardest to describe. Clarice has been increasingly interested in tensions within the social fabric of our society, especially as exacerbated by incendiary politicians, climate change, mass migration and refugee issues. Clash is not program music and does not tell a specific story or illuminate a specific argument. But it does embody some of these same social struggles as expressed by the string quartet and bandoneón...its beauty emerges as the stronger and unifying force, giving us hope for the future.  As with all the music in this album, this too was recorded in one take.