Cluster Ensemble

This disc contains both ADD and DDD recordings.

REVIEW:

Aarre Merikanto’s career divided broadly into three phases, those of apprentice, radical and conservative, and there are works from each present on this valuable new issue. Critical hindsight accords (quite rightly) that the brief radical phase, roughly corresponding to the 1920s, was the most valuable, though at the time Merikanto’s modernistic approach – and that of his like-minded contemporaries, Ernest Pingoud and Vaino Raito – was derided. Only one piece here represents this period, the highly accomplished tone-poem, Pan (1924), a wonderful, evocative, yet robust score, possessed of a very Nordic brand of impressionism. The playing of the Tampere orchestra is perhaps not quite as refined as the Finnish Radio Orchestra under Segerstam, but Ollila catches more of the dangerousness of the goat-footed deity.

Lemminkainen (1916), by contrast to Pan, seems immature, and rather parochial. A Sibelian shadow lies heavily across its quarter-hour duration, yet without a trace of the older composer’s own Lemminkainen tone-poems. There is little of the latter’s emotional and psychological depth – or musical range – but instead a prevailing rollicking good humour broken occasionally by quieter, more serious moments. The remaining works all date from the early stages of Merikanto’s post-modern period, when he reverted to a simpler, more accessible idiom. The Four Compositions (1932), which barely exceed Pan in length, nevertheless make a very effective and satisfying set, and whereas the Andante religioso (1933) seems like a piece out of context, the Scherzo (1937) is entirely convincing on its own. Taken together, these five works make a much more positive impression than did the rather uneven Pingoud works (Ondine, 2/98), especially in performances as sympathetic and well-recorded as these. Quietly recommended.

-- Gramophone [8/1998]

Although Madetoja never apes Sibelius's manner, now and again one gets a hint of what a mature Sibelian opera might have sounded like.

If Juhani Aho's tale of misplaced love leading to tragedy was a landmark for the Finnish novel, its operatic potential has proved scarcely less and was spotted early by the singer Aino Ackte. She created a libretto which was offered first to Sibelius (he temporized for a couple of years before finally declining), then to Aarre Merikanto who completed his setting, one of the great operas of the century, in 1921 (now recorded by Finlandia). Merikanto's style was too radical for Finland in the 1920s and his opera was not staged until 1963. Ackte eventually took her libretto back and offered it to Leevi Madetoja, who duly completed his version in 1934. Yet even the most cursory glance at the texts as printed in the booklets accompanying the Merikanto and Madetoja sets reveals that the librettos are utterly different. There are concurrences, but consistent only with both librettos having been derived from a common source. Even the cast lists vary. Madetoja radically simplified the action, concentrating on the three principals (Juha, his errant wife, Marja, and the itinerant Karelian pedlar, Shemeikka). In doing so many of the subtler motivations present in Merikanto's score were lost, most crucially at the climax with the role of Shemeikka in Juha's discovery that Marja had left him of her own accord. What saves Madetoja's version is the music.

If Merikanto's opera now seems the more impressive achievement that is no reflection on Madetoja's, which is as finely conceived as his earlier The Ostrobothnians (see my review in August's issue) and hugely enjoyable. Although Madetoja never apes Sibelius's manner, now and again one gets a hint of what a mature Sibelian opera might have sounded like. With so natural a talent for opera it is a shame that Madetoja completed only two; Ondine and Finlandia are to be praised in making both available. The two acts of Juha are divided one per disc, although at 58 and 41 minutes respectively the second is somewhat short measure. Given that this is not a new recording a suitable coupling could have been found in one of the suites from his ballet Okon Fuoko or even The Ostrobothnians. This is my only quibble about this set; the performance, once again built around the peerless Jorma Hynninen, is splendid. Even if one has the Merikanto Juha, Madetoja's is still well worth investigating on its own merits, let alone as an alternative treatment.

-- Gramophone [11/1992]

Ondine’s releases on Baltic composers continue with a new exciting release featuring recent orchestral compositions by New York-based Lithuanian composer Žibuokle Martinaityte (b. 1973) composed within a span of six years performed by Lithuanian orchestras conducted by the young talented Lithuanian conductor Giedre Slekyte and pianist Gabrielius Alekna as soloist. Martinaityte was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2020. Among her output are impressive orchestral compositions with evocative titles and beautiful orchestral textures with precision to detail. The most recent of the works, Saudade (2019) symbolizes the stratum of multiple yearnings: sadness for missing and happiness for experiencing the past. Millefleur (2018) is a work that the composer has described as “acoustic hedonism, a search for acoustic pleasures”. Martinaityte’s Chiaroscuro trilogy (2017) is a 3-movement work for piano and strings, reflecting the very essence of our existence; the various grades of darkness and light. Horizons (2013) was written in New York and Lithuania and was inspired by two movies, Cloud Atlas and The Hours as well as Italo Calvino’s novel If on a winter’s night a traveler. In this work the listener travels through one story to another.

REVIEWS:

When listening to Žibuoklė Martinaitytė, you might be tempted to assign her to a school. The composer clearly likes extended time scales and slowly mutating materials, so does that make her a Minimalist? Further evidence for such a label includes praise she has received from the composer Ingram Marshall.

The Ondine imprint’s new album-length survey of her orchestral music, “Saudade,” doesn’t radically upend such a classification—though it does complicate the story. While the title track invites comparison to works like John Luther Adams’s calmly roiling “Become Ocean,” other pieces on the album show off Martinaityte’s distinctiveness.

She can create hovering nimbus clouds of harmony with the best of them. Yet she’s not afraid to throw a thunderbolt through her subtle, scenic designs. Midway through the otherwise beatific “Millefleur,” a percussive edge emerges, offering an unexpected martial cast to the work. And on “Horizons,” as played by the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra, the handoffs between strutting flutes and stark strings also serve notice regarding this composer’s winning unpredictability.

-- New York Times

Žibuoklė Martinaitytė (b. 1973) is a Lithuanian composer whose orchestral music has links to the French Spectral school, Minimalism, and the world of Pärt, Silvestrov, and the Eastern European “Spiritual Minimalists.” She is interested in sonority (like the Spectralists), but her sonorities, while they sometimes employ avant-garde playing techniques, are not necessarily dissonant. Martinaitytė has moved beyond shock value: She uses tonal harmonies and, while her textures are highly imaginative, she tends to avoid ugly noise. Nor is her music simply feel-good New Age doodling: she recognizes the symphony orchestra has immense power, which she summons up expertly at climactic moments. The performances are dazzling, and the sound picture captures everything in a satisfying balance. I heartily recommend this program to listeners who think they may not like it.

-- Fanfare

Jouni Kaipainen (b. 1956) is one of the finest amongst the younger generations of Finnish composers. His music characteristically displays an engaging and remarkable fusion of diatonicism within a sound-world of serial complexity reflecting the impact of the two principal mentors from his youth: Aulis Sallinen and Paavo Heininen. But Kaipainen has steadily developed away from both of them to forge his own style. This can be heard already in his First Symphony (1980-85) and Clarinet Concerto, Carpe diem! (1990). The single-span structure of Symphony No. 1 retained remarkable spontaneity despite taking six years to perfect. Its successor, outwardly more conventional in three movements, had less protracted birth pangs and is an even more impressive achievement, perhaps the finest Finnish symphony since Rautavaara’s Fifth (1986). Admirers of Sibelius’s architectonic instinct will find much to like here, even if at times Kaipainen sounds rather closer in spirit to Karl Amadeus Hartmann.

The other two pieces also date from 1994. Sisyphus Dreams is basically a tone-poem, alternating black moods with hopeful quietude. The splendid Oboe Concerto is outwardly of a lighter disposition than the symphony but highly virtuosic, delivered with breathtaking aplomb by its dedicatee, Helen Jahren. When in Finland last November I heard some very indifferent playing (in the Sibelius Violin Concerto) from the Finnish Radio orchestra under Sakari Oramo; their playing in all three items here is of a much higher order. Very strongly recommended.

-- Gramophone [3/1996]

Includes song(s) by Leevi Madetoja. Soloists: Helena Juntunen, Gustav Djupsjöbacka.

Heininen, P.: Jeu I / Discantus I / Salonen, E.: Yta I / Mer

Magnus Lindberg (b. 1958) is among the leading figures in today’s contemporary music internationally. This new release by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by its chief conductor Hannu Lintu includes world premiere recordings of two new works by Magnus Lindberg: orchestral work Tempus fugit and Violin Concerto No. 2, featuring Frank Peter Zimmermann as its soloist.

This release also celebrates the composer’s 60th anniversary. Violin Concerto No. 2, written for Frank Peter Zimmermann, was composed during Lindberg’s tenure as the composer-in-residence for the London Philharmonic Orchestra. This three-movement work represents well Lindberg’s late lush orchestral style and is reminiscent to the tradition of great romantic violin concertos of the past. The concerto has three movements played without a break, with a solo cadenza towards the end of the second movement. The music is at times lucid and bright and at times lusciously sonorous, and the soloist is called upon to display both fireworks and soaring melodic arcs.

Tempus fugit was commissioned by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and premiered at the gala concert for the centenary of Finland’s independence in Helsinki in 2017. Although the work has a strong positive and even lucid fundamental tone, the composer did not seek to write a traditional anniversary piece. Instead, he sought a new approach through means that he had first employed in the 1980s, going back to the harmonic studies that he had undertaken on computer, using the LISP programming language – the same that he had used when creating his first major orchestral work, Kraft (1983–85). The result, however, is quite different from his edgy, even aggressive, early works: Tempus fugit is a 30-minute orchestral work embracing an Impressionist brightness of color, melodic lines and a warm Romantic glow. The work is dedicated to Hannu Lintu.

Austrian composer Thomas Larcher (b. 1963) is one of the great symphonists of our era. This album by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and conductor Hannu Lintu includes the first recording of his 2nd Symphony, ‘Kenotaph’, and the song cycle ‘Die Nacht der Verlorenen’ performed by the world-known baritone Andrè Schuen. Larcher’s symphony was written in 2015–2016 to a commission from the National Bank of Austria for its bicentenary. The premiere was given by the Vienna Philharmonic under Semyon Bychkov at the Musikverein in Vienna in June 2016. Larcher’s work, originally intended as a concerto for orchestra, engages with tradition as a fertile background, while still embodying the sound and consciousness of our time. The subtitle to Larcher’s work was motivated by the painful awareness of the thousands of refugees who have drowned in the Mediterranean. The work can also be understood as a more general meditation on human tragedy and an exploration of profound existential issues. Larcher ties the material of the work together with a strong sense of dramaturgy, intense emotional expression and a feeling for musical narrative. The song cycle ‘Die Nacht der Verlorenen’ for baritone and large ensemble sets fragments by Ingeborg Bachmann (1926–1973) that were posthumously published. Bachmann’s dark texts inspired Larcher to write intense and compelling music that is entirely in tune with the mood of the poems. Overall, the work is dominated by slow, meditative and often dreamlike and unreal moods, effectively underpinned by delicate and carefully designed scoring that conjures up a multitude of colors and shades.

Ondine continues its series of works by Baltic composers wtih a new exciting release. This album features Moorland Elegies, a nine-part cycle for mixed choir and string orchestra, is a crowning achievement of its composer Tõnu Kõrvits's magical impressionism. The work was premiered by the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra at Tallinn's St. John's Church in October, 2015. Tõnu Kõrvits works belong to the repertoire of the most important Estonian orchestras, choirs and artists. In recent years hi smusic has been performed more and more outside of his native Estonia. Beside Beljo Tormis's shamanistic spells, Erkki-Sven Tüür's energetic explosions and Arvo Pärt's religious contemplations, Kõrvits's sound world stands out as highly poetic, full of visionary fantasies. His music carries the lsitener along on hypnotic journeys through the landscapes of nature and folk tradition, human soul and subconscious. His oeuvre includes all traditional genres from orchestral and instrumental music to choral music and operas.

1. Tonttujen joulukuusi (*) 4:51
2. Jing Bells 3:45
3. Petteri Punakuono 2:07
4. Te lapsoset, lapsoset kiiruhtakaa 3:42
5. O Come All Ye Faithful 3:54
6. Kun joulu valkeneepi 1:37
7. Puer natus in Bethlehem 1:02
8. Jouluyö, juhlayö 3:01
9. Joulukranssi kuudella kielellä 8:58
10. Ding Dong! Merrily on High 2:34
11. We Wish You a Merry Christmas 3:11
12. Santa Lucia 4:03
13. O Tannenbaum 2:33
14. Kun joulupukki suukon sai 3:02
15. Joulupukki matkaan jo käy 2:39
16. White Christmas 2:42

[ 61:15 ]

Jorma Hynninen, baritone
Tapiola Choir
Raimo Sirkiä, tenor
Vox Aurea
Monica Groop, mezzosoprano
Sympaatti Youth Choir
Turku Castle Chamber Choir
Savonlinna Opera Festival Chorus
Kalevi Kiviniemi, organ
Matti Salminen, bass

1. Ken kuullut on laulua enkelien - Who Hath Heard the Angels Sing 2:11
2. O scholares, voce pares - O Student, with Equal Voices 2:50
3. Ecce novum gaudium - Behold the New Joy 1:50
4. Talviyöhön synkkään - In the Bleak Mid-Winter 4:23
5. Heinillä härkien kaukalon - Oxen and Asses Stand Around 1:52
6. Hiljainen joululaulu - A Quiet Christmas Song 3:38
7. Kun joulu on - When It´s Christmas 2:27
8. Mökit nukkuu lumiset - Cottages Sleep Under Snow 3:08
9. Varpunen jouluaamuna - The Sparrow´s Christmas 4:01
10. Kilisee kilisee kulkunen - Jingling, Jingling Sleigh Bells Ring - Iloinen joululaulu - Happy Christmas Song 1:45
11. Tuo armon valkokyyhky - Lo How a Rose E´er Blooming 2:30
12. Tiernapojat - Star Boys - an Old Finnish Christmas Pageant 12:04
13. Jouluaatto on nyt herttainen - It is Now Sweet Christmas Eve 1:17
14. Kuusen ympärillä - Around the Christmas Tree 1:16
15. Juhla on verraton - Now We Have a Feast 1:11
16. Reippahasti käypi askelet - Rushing Go the Footsteps 1:52
17. Taas kaikki kauniit muistot - All Beautiful Memories 3:12
18. Jo joutuu ilta - It is Growing Dark 2:10
19. Jouluyönä - On Christmas Night 1:26
20. Jouluyö, juhlayö - Silent Night, Holy Night 2:47
21. Maa on niin kaunis - Beauty Around Us 4:02

[ 63:27 ]

Tapiola Choir
Gabriel Suovanen, baritone
Eija Kankaanranta, kantele
Mervi Yli-Vainio, kantele
Kari Ala-Pöllänen, conductor

REVIEW:

Of all the Finnish successors to Sibelius, Uuno Klami (1900-61) followed most closely in the master’s footsteps, both in idiom and in finding inspiration in the national epic, the Kalevala. Several discs of his music have already appeared, but this is the premiere recording of these two symphonies. No. 2 is a powerfully sombre wartime work full of engaging melodic and harmonic ideas: the long opening movement has a strong Sibelian dramatic momentum. The more impressionistic Symphonie enfantine dates from 1928 and reflects a year of study in Paris earlier in the decade. The Tampere orchestra is a fine ensemble, with a full bodied string sound, biting brass and refined woodwind, all caught with richness by Ondine’s sound engineering.
Performance: ****
Sound: ****

-- Matthew Rye, BBC Music Magazine

“The first thing to be said is that there is nothing in the symphony to remind one of Sibelius.” So opines Helena Tyrvainen in her notes on Uuno Klami’s First Symphony (1937-8), but for many listeners even the most casual acquaintance will suggest quite the contrary. Granted the form and structure of Klami’s work has little to do with any of Sibelius’s seven, even the First with which it shares an awareness of nineteenth-century Russian symphonism. Klami adopts a lyric, non-epic approach, closer in spirit to Melartin’s earlier symphonies, or even Madetoja. None the less, the language is reminiscent of Sibelius, even to the use of pulsing horn chords and pedals, and brought to my mind the minor tone-poems and incidental music, for instance the Dance Intermezzo or Swanwhite. That said, there are as many traces of Russian music (rather more dear to Klami’s heart), and in the finale a passage that would not be out of place in Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet.

Klami was a noted exponent of neo-classicism, but you would scarcely know that from either the symphony or the later King Lear Overture (1944-5; the third piece Klami composed on this Shakespearean subject). I am not sure I would have guessed the subject from the music, which has a generally tragic-dramatic atmosphere. The performances and recording are both splendid; a valuable addition to the catalogue."

-- Gramophone [3/1996]