REVIEW:

It's the marvelous singing of Lilli Paasikivi, with her intelligence, penetrating insight, and richly rounded tone that fully captures the spirit of these works and makes them little gems that no Lieder enthusiast can afford to overlook. Ondine's warmly resonant, naturally balanced recording makes this important disc even more welcome. It's a "must-have".

It's not long into this disc before it becomes evident that Alma Mahler was a very different composer from her famous husband Gustav. Alma studied with Zemlinsky, whose influence (along with that of Hugo Wolf) shows most readily in her work--yet this is Alma's music through and through. Even before Mahler forbade her from composing once they were married, Alma displayed a distinctive voice, one steeped in 19th-century Romanticism (her father often sang Schumann lieder) as well as the musical currents of the new century. The first set of Five Songs comes from this early period, and right from the opening "Die stille Stadt" Alma's skill at word setting captivates, as does her ability to recreate in music each poem's unique emotional state. Of the five, "Bei dir ist es traut", with its recurring falling major second, is the only one that sounds remotely close to her husband's style.

After Gustav's death Alma again took up composition, and the following Four Songs reveal a new richness and poignancy in her writing as well as an expanded harmonic palette. "Licht in der Nacht"'s haunting atmosphere lingers after the song has ended, while "Anstrum"'s tonal waywardness displays Alma's awareness of modern musical developments. Alma's last set of Five Songs, published in 1924, is based on spiritual texts, emphasizing both their reverential (Hymne) and mystical (Hymne an die Nacht) themes.

The program concludes with two unpublished songs, "Leise Weht ein erstes Bluhn" and "Kennst du meine Nachte", both composed in a cultivated Romantic style that would indicate their belonging to Alma's earlier period. The impact of the music is no doubt enhanced by Jorma Panula's idiomatic and imaginative orchestrations, beautifully rendered by the Tampere Philharmonic.

--Victor Carr Jr, ClassicsToday.com

Anders Hillborg (b. 1954) is one of those "texture guys" who throws everything but the kitchen sink into a piece in somewhat Schnittkean fashion, and seems to have great fun doing it. There's a certain anonymity to this style of composition--it's almost what musicologists would call a "common practice", but there's also no denying the fact that Hillborg practices his craft very well and that these smashingly performed and vibrantly recorded pieces present him in the best possible light.

The Clarinet Concerto is a very ambitious work that sustains its 28-minute length with ease. It does just about everything you can do with a woodwind instrument, and probably a few things that you shouldn't attempt at home, covering a huge range of expression and even allowing a surprising touch of humor (note the quotation from Tosca near the beginning and the bits of pseudo-pop music throughout). Hillborg's "al fresco" style of orchestration works particularly well in both this and the violin concerto, where he finds any number of fascinating and voluptuous instrumental textures to act as musical "frames" within which his soloist cavorts about with abandon. Freely dissonant but with strong tonal leanings, both concertos are just plain fun, especially when played as well as they are here by Martin Fröst (clarinet) and Anna Lindal (violin).

Liquid Marble is rather less interesting: evidently the composer had lava and magma in mind when writing it, but what he actually achieved comes off sounding like so much chromatic sludge. It rises to a nicely violent climax, but there doesn't seem to be much substance to what obviously is intended to be both brilliant and terrifying at the same time. Still, it's only 10 minutes long, and others may enjoy it more than I did. There's no denying the excellence of the performance under Esa-Pekka Salonen, nor does this single caveat in any way diminish the appeal of this very well recorded disc as a fine way to make the acquaintance of a talented and very enjoyable composer.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

REVIEW:

The Finnish Brass Symphony, directed by Hannu Lintu, has recorded a masterful survey of music by countryman Einojuhani Rautavaara. Spanning more than 45 years of the composer's work, the album functions as something of a compendium of themes that Rautavaara has returned to time and again in his music, from the dodecaphonic experiments of the Wind Octet to his ongoing fascination with angels. In this performance of 1981's Playgrounds for Angels, it becomes unclear if the playgrounds belong entirely to terrifying otherworldly beings or to these instrumentalists, whose superb ensemble skills definitely qualify them as supernaturally talented. 1953's A Requiem in our Time has been recorded at least four times, most memorably--until now--on a BIS disc with Brass Partout. The bold strokes and brash colors of this work are reflected in the more rare Soldier's Mass from 1968, whose "In Hora Mortis" movement presages the shimmering intensity of Rautavaara's later works.

A few shorter compositions round out the collection. Originally written as a compulsory piece for a trumpet competition, the Tarantará must have struck fear into the hearts of those brass players--in Rautavaara's hands, the instrument is nothing short of a wild animal that shrieks, growls, and leaps all over the register with dizzying speed. The extraordinary trumpeter Pasi Pirinen makes it all seem easy. The fanfare written for Finland's 75th independence anniversary is a mere 37 seconds long: blink twice, and you miss it entirely. The most recent composition, 1998's Hymnus for trumpet and organ, ably performed by Deborah Calland and Barry Millington, completes the survey. Kudos to Ondine for a marvelous recording.

--Anastasia Tsioulcas, ClassicsToday.com