The most wonderful thing about Rautavaara's songs is that no matter what the technical basis of his compositional method, he understands that "song" means an evocative text set to a singable melody. You may not go away humming all of the tunes here, particularly in the brief, powerful, and oddly disturbing cycle God's Way (to poems by Bo Setterlind), but there's no questioning the fundamental rightness of Rautavaara's reaction to the words, or his ability to project his feelings into an expressive vocal line. That's not something to be taken for granted nowadays, when grateful and effective writing for the voice is no longer the basis of most composers' techniques, whether writing for people or for instruments.

The remaining four sets of songs on this disc all employ texts of the highest quality, by Shakespeare (in English, by the way), Rilke, and Finnish poet Aleksis Kivi. The Rilke settings are particularly moving, nowhere more so than The Lovers, whose third song, "Woman Loving", ought to be a recital classic by now. The three songs taken from the opera Aleksis Kivi also deserve to find a life of their own away from the larger work. They stand among the most hauntingly beautiful of Rautavaara's latest creations. Baritone Gabriel Suovanen sings all of this music with warm tone and great musical intelligence, and he couldn't be better accompanied than by Segerstam and the Helsinki Philharmonic. Ideally balanced sound rounds out this most enticing picture of Rautavaara's generously lyrical art.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Ponce, M: Sonatina Meridional / Tema Variado Y Final / Guita

Vocal Recital: Paasikivi, Lilli - MAASALO, A. / SIBELIUS, J.

Ernest Pingoud (1887-1942) is one of those names one encounters in footnotes, or in the more comprehensive musical dictionaries. The Gramophone Database contains no entry for him other than this worthy new disc, and I am not aware of any previous recordings of his music, even from Finland (to where he emigrated from Russia in 1918). In his day, he was considered one of Finland’s leading modernists, with Vaino Rautio and Aarre Merikanto, so consequently had to endure sustained indifference. He eventually threw himself under a train.

His style as exhibited in these five tone-poems (only Fetich, 1917, and Le chant de l’espace – “The song of space”, 1931-8 – really live up to the “symphonic poem” billing; the others are too small in scale) is frankly not particularly distinctive, and can be summed up as a mish-mash of Strauss and Scriabin orchestrated by Prokofiev. Resonances of other composers abound, not least of Russian contemporaries but also Finns such as Melartin in Le prophete (1921) and Fetich, and early Sibelius in Flambeaux eteints (“Extinguished torches”, 1919). Fetich is by some way the best of them, skittish and excitable by turns but compelling overall, unlike Le chant de l’espace which is overblown and structurally flaccid. Le prophete, Chantecler (1919) and the rather engaging Flambeaux eteints lie variously in between. Sakari Oramo produces exemplary performances, faithfully recorded. One for the specialists.

-- Gramophone [2/1998]

Segerstam, L.: Symphony No. 18 in One Thought / Epitaph No.

Rubinstein & Moszkowski: Piano Concertos

Ravel, M.: Gaspard De La Nuit / Miroirs / Jeux D'Eau

Lindberg, M.: Piano Concerto No. 1 / Kraft

REVIEW:

The Finnish soprano Aino Ackté, an enthusiastic promoter of her country's music (she founded the Savonlinna Festival to foster a national operatic repertoire), was so struck by Juhani Aho's novel Juha that she wrote a libretto based on it and offered it to Sibelius. When after long consideration he rejected it, the next composer she turned to was Aarre Merikanto (1893-1958). It was an imaginative choice: in 1920 he was a promising young composer, from an operatic background (his father Oskar Merikanto was the most successful Finnish opera composer of the period), and had already written one opera himself. That student one-acter, however, had been condemned as excessively modern, and Merikanto destroyed it. Almost a worse fate awaited Juha. The Finnish Opera demanded various changes and then, without actually rejecting the piece, shelved it. With remarkable insensitivity Ackté later offered the libretto to yet another composer, Leevi Madetoja, thus making it even less likely that Merikanto's work, with its rumoured reputation as a difficult modern piece, would ever be performed. It was not heard until a broadcast performance three months after the composer's death, and did not reach the stage until five years after that.

Since then, however, despite the continuing popularity of Madetoja's 'rival' setting, Merikanto's work has come to be seen as something of a classic in the Finnish operatic repertoire. It is late- or post-romantic in style, the richly sonorous orchestration owing something to the nineteenth-century Russians and to Scriabin, something to Debussy (at times, therefore, it sounds faintly Delian or Baxian). The very word-responsive vocal lines recall Janácek; so does Merikanto's way of ending some scenes with dramatic abruptness. But the melodic lines have a strength that is his own; it is easier to trace their influence on his pupil Aulis Sallinen than to find any obvious model for them. The plot, too, is one that Sallinen might have taken to instinctively had two other composers not already set it: an eternal triangle of a loving but elderly, crippled husband, dissatisfied young wife and glamorous but brutal stranger. Marja leaves Juha for the wealthy merchant Shemeikka (in fact much of his income is from robbery and extortion) but soon discovers that she is but the latest of his annual 'summer girls', who become unpaid servants once he has finished with them. She returns to Juha, who forgives her, forgives even the child she has had by Shemeikka, but on learning that she was not abducted by him but followed him of her own free will he despairs and kills himself.

The music is at its strongest when it touches the rawest emotions: Juha's passive suffering and his blind animal rage when he at last confronts Shemeikka and cripples him; Marja's adoration of Shemeikka and her pain at his abandonment of her; the moving sincerity of Juha's forgiveness; perhaps most of all the touching lyricism of Anja, an earlier 'summer girl' who still loves Shemeikka despite everything. The music is saved from austerity by its often rich colour (when for example Shemeikka tempts Maria with gifts of a silk scarf, a golden brooch) and the use of folk (or folk-like) music: Shemeikka, at times a jovial Hunding or a jesting Scarpia (although, most tellingly, he is a tenor), turns into a Finnish Khan Konchak when he welcomes his newest temporary consort with music and dancing.

The performance is splendid, Hynninen dark voiced and vehemently eloquent, Saarinen capable both of long-lined lyricism and a touch of edgy shrewishness, Sirkiä suggesting Shemeikka's allure in broad lyrical lines delivered with a heroic ring.

There are no weak links in the supporting cast, and Saraste obviously loves the score's opulence and its big gestures. The recording is first-rate, giving an excellent impression of how stageworthy Juha is.

-- Gramophone [8/1996]

Includes work(s) by various composers. Ensemble: Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra. Conductor: John Storgårds. Soloist: Soile Isokoski.

REVIEW:

This is the world premiere recording of Hindemith’s Piano Music with Orchestra (piano left hand), commissioned by Paul Wittgenstein in 1922 and completed within six months. Wittgenstein—a musical reactionary—never played it; the commissioning contract gave him exclusive performance rights for his lifetime, and he prohibited anyone else from doing so. After his death in 1961, his estate ignored all requests about the piece; in fact, it had lost the score. A flawed copy of the original manuscript turned up in a Pennsylvania farmhouse in 2002 and was successfully coordinated with sketches in the Hindemith archives. Fleisher gave the first performance with the Berlin Philharmonic in December 2004. Hindemith was just emerging from his avant-garde youth at that time. The radical firebrand still shows up in three of the four movements, which are played without pause.

The introduction is aggressive, loud, and brassy, but it does suggest the more staid Hindemith to come. The second movement is filled with outbursts from a large percussion group. A mysterious slow movement features a long duet between piano and English horn, which later gives way to a flute; it is reminiscent of the aborted love scene in the composer’s 1926 opera Cardillac. Fleisher believes that the movement’s basso continuo, which consists of 12 quarter notes (repeated) and uses 11 of the 12 tones, was poking fun at Schoenberg’s recently devised dodecaphonic system. The finale returns to the wild, nose-thumbing style of Hindemith’s 1920 opera Das Nusch-Nuschi.

Fleisher “owns” the left-hand repertoire, and is in this case the unique interpreter. He convinces one listener that this is exactly how the piece should go, revealing everything it has to say. The Curtis orchestra supplies solid, reliable accompaniment. If a few solos are not quite as beautiful as those from the New York Philharmonic, Eschenbach’s views of the music seem more sensitive than Maazel’s and the students more comfortable with the 85-year-old music than the New Yorkers.

Dvorak’s “New World” is played to top professional standards—the strings are gorgeous, as is Rebekah Daley’s first-desk French horn—but I don’t find the reading very interesting. The recorded sound is merely decent and a bit congested, far from the brilliance Ondine achieved for Martinu’s Memorial to Lidice, also a live performance, but admittedly an SACD. The booklet lists every player but oddly gives no credit for English horn, despite that instrument’s important solos in both works. The program writers for both the New York Philharmonic and this disc may have had no opportunity to study Hindemith’s score or hear his music, as they concentrate on its fascinating history.

--James H. North, Fanfare

Choral Concert: Tapiola Choir - TORMIS, V. / ASHEIM, N.H. /

Helsinki Recital: Karita Mattila (Live)

Selections recorded August 1996.