Nordic Highlights No. 2 2014

NORDIC

HIGHLIGHTS

2/2014

NEWSLETTER FROM GEHRMANS MUSIKFÖRLAG & FENNICA GEHRMAN

Benjamin Staern’s busy year

Focus on Nuorvala

Frida and Diego – world premiere

Nominations for the Nordic Council’s music prize

The opera Frida and Diego by Kalevi Aho will be premiered at the Helsinki Music Centre on 17 October 2014. It tells, in Spanish, about turning points in the lives of Frida Kahlo, her husband Diego Rivera, and Lev Trotsky, an exile in Mexico. The characters are powerful and dramatic, and the atmosphere varies from dreamy to wild carnival moods. There is also some heated argument and sharp political parody.

Frida and Diego is Kalevi Aho’s fifth opera. It has nine roles, a chorus and a 29-piece orchestra.

The libretto is by Maritza Núñez. The producer is the Sibelius Academy, which commissioned the opera.

New Pohjannoro website

NORDIC

HIGHLIGHTS

2/2014

NEWSLE T TER FROM GEHRMANS MUSIKFÖRLAG & FENNICA GEHRMAN

Sound samples , video clips and other material are available at www.gehrmans.se/highlights Cover photos: Adam Haglund (Benjamin Staern), Saara Vuorjoki/Music Finland (Juhani Nuorvala) Editors: Henna Salmela and Kristina Fryklöf Translations: Susan Sinisalo and Robert Carroll Design: Tenhelp Oy/Tenho Järvinen ISSN 2000-2742 (Print), ISSN 2000-2750 (Online) Printed in Sweden by TMG Sthlm, Bromma 2014

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Photo: Bilbo Lantto

Eliasson´s Fourth at Philharmonie Anders Eliasson´s Symphony No. 4 will be performed at Philharmonie Berlin on 8 May 2015 with Sakari Oramo conducting the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester. The symphony was performed for the first time in Germany when it received its world premiere by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Munich in 2007.

Photo: Maarit Kytöharju/Music Finland

NEWS

Fredrik Högberg has been nominated for the Nordic Council´s music prize for his Ice Concerto.

In this piano concerto Högberg has combined the visual element with the musical by utilising three-channel film, the art of still, and dance – in addition to the symphony orchestra – to create a work that calls the audience´s attention to global warming. Works by Mikko Heiniö (Eerik XIV, opera in three acts) and Lotta Wennäkoski (Jong) have also been nominated.

Composer Hannu Pohjannoro (b. 1963) has set up a website in English at www.pohjannoro.com.

The site includes information about upcoming events, a work list with sound or video samples as well as samples of scores. Pohjannoro’s output comprises some fifty works. The interaction between emotional expression and well-trained structural thinking is important for him, as is focusing on the present: the beauty of the shades of silence.

Disc award for the Key Ensemble The CD Ave Maria – Aurora borealis by the chamber choir Key Ensemble has won the American Contemporary A Cappella Recording Award 2014. The disc features contemporary Scandinavian music on the theme of the Virgin Mary and the main work is the big, five-movement Maria Suite composed by Mikko Heiniö for the Key Ensemble. The choir is conducted on the disc by its Artistic Director, Teemu Honkanen.

Pasimusic Festival Pasimusic is a new classical and contemporary music event revolving around works and ideas of composer Pasi Lyytikäinen. The first festival organised by the Necto Ensemble is to be held in Kuopio and Lapinlahti on 18–22 September.

The programme will present songs

by Ahti Sonninen performed by Eija Räisänen, along with music

by Lyytikäinen, Joonas Kokkonen, Shostakovich and others.

Linjama church opera on disc Jyrki Linjama’s church opera Die Geburt des Täufers (The Birth of the Baptist) scored for four soloists and nine players has been released on the Alba label. Singing Mary is soprano Ursula Langmayr, and the other soloists are Tuula Paavola, Niall Chorell and Esa Ruuttunen. The Soli Deo Gloria chamber orchestra is conducted by Juhani Lamminmäki.

Linjama’s opera was premiered at the Carinthian Summer festival in Austria in 2010.

Church music has gradually come to occupy an increasingly central position in Linjama’s output, which also includes chamber and orchestral, instrumental and vocal music.

Photo: Turun Sanomat

PREMIERES

Olli Kortekangas & FinnFest Music by Olli Kortekangas can be heard at the FinnFest event in Minnesota on 6 August. The programme will include his Triptych for Seven and church music, the latter at Mass on the closing day.

Kortekangas has also written a new orchestral work commissioned by the Minnesota Orchestra and Osmo Vänskä. Titled Migrations, it will be performed in Minneapolis during the 2015/2016 season.

FinnFest and Migrations are among the events commemorating the 150th anniversary of Finnish migration.

All in all, Kortekangas has a busy year, for he has also been commissioned to write a Clarinet Concerto to be performed in October by the Oulu Symphony Orchestra with Christoffer Sundqvist as the soloist.

Summer 2014 ROLF MARTINSSON Suite for Woodwind Quintet

Crusell Quintet 8.5. Linköping, Sweden Garden of Devotion

Musica Vitae/Nathalie Stutzmann, sol. Lisa Larsson, soprano 25.9. Växjö, Sweden

BENJAMIN STAERN Godai: The Five Elements

Tubin Complete Works

Malmö SO/Marc Soustrot 15.5. Malmö, Sweden

Sandström news Photo: Elias Sjögren

Twelve of the projected thirty-three volumes in the series “Eduard Tubin Complete Works” have now been published, among these: all ten symphonies, piano pieces and works for solo violin. The publication was initiated in 2007 by the Eduard Tubin Society in cooperation with Gehrmans Musikförlag. The volumes can be purchased separately but it is also possible to subscribe to the whole edition. On the average two volumes are published per year. Those in preparation include nos. IX and X (Violin Concertos, full score and piano score) and nos. XIV and XV (Concerto for Double Bass and Concerto for Balalaika, full score and piano score). Read more at: www.gehrmans.se/en/subscriptions/tubinsubscription.

SVEN-DAVID SANDSTRÖM De profundis for mixed choir and percussion

Mariakören/Agneta Sköld 25.5. Västerås, Sweden Nordisk mässa/Nordic Mass to texts by Tomas Tranströmer

Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir/Mogens Dahl 23.5. Bergen, Norway (Bergen International Festival)

JYRKI LINJAMA Barcarolle for violin and piano

Kaija Saarikettu, violin, Sonja Fräki, piano 3.6. Helsinki, Finland

KALEVI AHO Cello Concerto No. 2

Lahti SO/Osmo Vänskä, sol. Arto Noras 5.6. Naantali, Finland (Naantali Music Festival)

Photo: Angelica Ahlefeldt-Laurvig

Haglund’s music in New York Tommie Haglund has been invited to be guest composer at the Luzern Music Centre, New York, in August, where he will both teach classes and give lectures. Haglund’s music will be presented at three concerts, 1-3 August, by musicians from the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra and students from the Luzern Music Centre. Works to be performed include the string trio Sollievo (dopo la tempesta), To the Sunset Breeze for harp, guitar and string quartet, the string quartet Il regno degli spiriti, La Rosa profunda for soprano and piano, Serenata per Diotima for string orchestra, plus a newly written piece for solo violin, Epilogue to Hymns of the Night.

All-Swedish BBC concert The BBC Symphony Orchestra and Rumon Gamba will give an all-Swedish concert on 13 June at the BBC Maida Vale Studios in London. There will be music of Tobias Broström (Transit Underground), Hugo Alfvén (Suite from The Mountain King) and Mats Larsson Gothe (Symphony No. 2). In addition pianist Clare Hammond will play Ture Rangström´s Mälar Legends.

Solo XI (Hommage á Munir Bashir)

Ismo Eskelinen, guitar 12.6. Raisio, Finland (Naantali Music Festival) Quintet for oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn and piano

Yeon Hee Kwak (ob), Ulf Rodenhäuser (cl), Johannes Hinterholzer (hn), Dag Jensen (bn), Yuka Imamine (pf) Solo VII

Wolfgang Bauer, trumpet 8.7. Rottweil, Germany (Klassikfestival Sommersprossen)

Sven-David Sandström has composed a Nordic Mass for mixed choir and cello to texts by Tomas Tranströmer. The work was written for the Danish Mogens Dahl´s Chamber Choir on commission from the Bergen Festival, where it was premiered on 23 May. The Swedish premiere will take place on 15 June during the O/Modernt Festival.

The first week in December will see the premiere of Force and Beauty – Five Dance Pieces for solo violin, chamber ensemble and three dancers, to choreography by Susanne Jaresand. Anna Lindal is the solo violinist together with KammarensembleN at the Stockholm House of Culture.

Watch the new portrait film about Sandström titled “In the Footprints of Bach”.

Here you can hear him tell about his big choral works and listen to sound samples from his new St. Matthew Passion, High Mass, Magnificat, Requiem, Lobet den Herrn, and more.

TIINA MYLLÄRINEN Traces

Pro Musica Foundation Orchestra/Atso Almila 5.6. Helsinki, Finland

UUNO KLAMI Pyörteitä (The Whirls), version for piano

Laura Mikkola, piano 25.7. Kuhmo, Finland (Kuhmo Chamber Music)

OLLI KORTEKANGAS New work for clarinet and string quartet

José Luis Estelles (cl), string quartet 30.7. Uusikaupunki, Finland (Crusell Music Festival)

ALBERT SCHNELZER Brain Damage – Concerto for Orchestra

Gothenburg SO/Alain Altinoglu 10.9. Gothenburg, Sweden

HIGHLIGHTS

2/2014

Photo: Adam Haglund

Busy year for

Benjamin Staern In 2012 Benjamin Staern received Sweden´s most prestigious composition award, the big Christ Johnson Prize, for his clarinet concerto Worried Souls. Since then he has received one commission after the other. In just April and May of this year three large-scale works have been premiered, and yet another premiere is in the pipeline for the autumn. “This is indeed the most intensive year in my life”, says Staern.

T

he month of April saw the premiere of Sånger om bländvit kärlek (Songs of Dazzingly White Love), five songs to texts by the poet Karin Boye, composed for the internationally renowned contralto Anna Larsson and the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra. Both Staern and Larsson came in contact with Boye´s poetry already in their teens and have a close relationship to her texts.

– I wanted to use some of her lesser-known poems and selected a few rather short and concise texts, but ones that nonetheless conveyed a message. With these as a basis I created a music drama that starts out tonal and harmonious and then becomes more and more dissonant when approaching the last two poems.

Benjamin Staern has allowed the dramatic features of the texts to give form to the music.

It starts out with spontaneous love. In the second song there is deep intimacy but also a touch of sadness and uncertainty. The third expresses yearning and the fourth, the profoundly dramatic and expressive song “Anxiety”, symbolises deceit.

– But there is still sort of a happy ending, says Benjamin. In the fifth song the bird spreads its wings again and flies away to new adventures.

One should never stop dreaming. These texts brought back memories of both the joy and the sorrow that I have experienced in life, something that I wanted to depict in music. As it turned out the result was fantastic.

Godai: The Five Elements In May it was time for the premiere of the multimedia work Saiyah at the Norrland Opera and after that the orchestral work Godai: The Five Elements, composed for the Malmö Symphony Orchestra and conductor Marc Soustrot. Godai is a concept in Japanese philosophy and martial arts and alludes to the five elements earth, water, fire, wind and sky or void.

– I wanted to write music that was very physically palpable, like a dance performance but without dancers. At the end of the first movement, for example, when the Indian rhythms and the

HIGHLIGHTS

2/2014

Asian sound-world come in, one can imagine a whole dance scene.

In Godai Staern utilises a large orchestra with a lot of percussion, everything from the usual traditional percussion instruments to Asian instruments such as temple bowls, dubaci, peking and java gongs, tom-toms, wooden blocks, etc.

– I did not want to work only with tutti sonorities but also with different layers set against one another. There are no doubt at least twelve strata, creating a kind of polyphony. I also play around with the rhythm and melodies in a slightly ironic manner.

There is no written history behind the music, but one can perhaps experience a journey that goes from a fairy tale world to a pulsating modern Asian metropolis. If you look at the expression marks you can get a picture of what it is about – from `Maestoso gioioso´ of the cogent first movement (Chi), to `Tranquillo´ in the more ethereal Sui movement, `Misterioso´ in the volcanic third movement (Ka), and finally the last movement (Fu/Ku), which opens with the wind´s `Vivo quasi perpetuum mobile´. Then Benjamin increases the intensity further in what he has chosen to call `Techno Mayham!, Explosion!´ and finally `Like a wild dance in ecstasy!´.

– And then it all ends with a bang, says Benjamin Staern with a laugh. One can view the work as a concerto for orchestra, something like a rounding off what I have done so far, but I also regard this from a new perspective. This means that I don´t quote themes from my earlier works, but I develop expressive means that I have used before and create something entirely new from them.

Polar Vortex Just now Benjamin is working on his next orchestral work, Polar Vortex, a joint commission by the symphony orchestras in Gävle, Helsingborg and Norrköping; its premiere will take place in Gävle in November under the direction of Leif Segerstam. Benjamin is inspired by the weather phenomenon Polar Vortex, which sometimes occurs in the Arctic regions and can create extreme weather conditions when it suddenly becomes unusually cold and frosty.

– I want to write something illustrative, and at the same time slightly abstract, a sound performance for orchestra. It is likely to be a work in three movements with an inner drama. I can imagine a piece of frozen architecture.

Coming up after this will be his composition of a Trumpet Concertino for Filip Draglund and the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra; the premiere is scheduled for April of next year.

– I conceive of it as a lyrical concerto with dramatic sections which I will write in close collaboration with the soloist. We are right now considering various ideas for this.

But Benjamin not only composes large-scale works for orchestra, he also takes “side orders”, as he jokingly calls his chamber pieces. One such work is Opposing Dance for flute and guitar which he wrote for Haga Duo. – Here I show another side of myself. In chamber music you can express yourself more freely; you can horse around a little more. For example, at the end of this work it says in the notes that you should “freak out completely and roar”, and once in a while in your composing you have to allow yourself to include such things in the music.

And Haga Duo likes the work. They have already performed it 13 times on tour in Australia and in Sweden. It is an entertaining and striking work and it has been highly appreciated by audiences and musicians alike.

Indeed, Benjamin Staern has his hands full for the foreseeable future and this entails responsibility. He talks about the need to be disciplined and cautions against taking on too many commissions, in which case the quality could suffer.

– For every work I have a vision that I want to realise, but when I start out I have no idea what the final result will be – and that is as it should be when creating music. If one knew the result in advance music would be extremely boring and predictable. You must dare to take risks, dig deeper and be yourself every moment. Somehow, each piece should have its own identity.

Whether this is possible or not I cannot say, but you can always try.

Kristina Fryklöf

Photo: Saara Vuorjoki / Music Finland

Juhani Nuorvala: a portrait Nuorvala’s voice, one of Finland’s most original, has always stood out from the Finnish mainstream. His music pounds with the rhythms of American minimalism and 1980s pop and presents microtonality as well as finely spun melodies.

M

y first encounter with the music of Juhani Nuorvala (b. 1961), not long after arriving in Finland, was through his first major CD release on the BIS label, “What’s A Nice Chord Like You Doing In A Piece Like This?” His irreverence stood out amid the general seriousness of Finnish music, and I thought, “I have to meet this guy.” Not long after I did. John Adams was in Helsinki conducting his own works, and Nuorvala was the only other composer interested enough to attend the rehearsals. I sat next to him (he had scores) and thus got to know one of Finland’s great iconoclasts.

Juhani Nuorvala has always stood out from the Finnish mainstream. Since Sibelius, this Nordic outpost has fixed its gaze on the Germanic tradition. Nuorvala, with his more Gallic orientation – classicist rather than expressionist – followed a markedly different path from the beginning, from Helsinki to New York via Paris and back. His works are emphatically and unapologetically urban, corporeal, rather than metaphysical. Forsaking the pulseless flow of modernism for kinetic beat, his music pounds with the rhythms of American minimalism and 1980s pop.

Microtonality and balletic rhythm This isn’t to say he has no connection with Finnish tradition. For one, the Romantic obsession with nature, and its accompanying loss of ego, finds a corollary in Nuorvala’s love of house music, the dissolution of self into the writhing mass of the dance floor. And nature found its way into his music in a very concrete way, through

his adoption of just intonation, untempered harmonies derived from the natural overtone series, as his main musical language from 1995. As to complexity, it’s there in spades, but you won’t hear it as such. His music, rather than alienating the listener with its strangeness, invites us in.

Case in point is Boost, a breathless, ecstasy-fueled nocturnal joy ride for cello and synthesizer, which is released this summer on the Alba label. The cello weaves a delirious microtonal melody over rushing sixteenth-note patterns from the very 80s-sounding synth, stopping only briefly to rhapsodize before tearing off into the night again. Boost displays a convergence of several tendencies in Nuorvala’s chamber music – balletic rhythm, microtonality, and finely spun melody – which have been on display since the start, from works like the pithy, conversational Five Pieces (1994) for flute and clarinet, also on the forthcoming Alba CD, to the rhapsodic, lyrical almost Dvořák-like String Quartet No. 2 (1997).

Flirting with the orchestra If ensemble and electronic works form the backbone of Nuorvala’s output, he does flirt periodically with the orchestra, seeking a path into its idiom that accords with his sound concept.

Notturno urbano (1996) is a bona fide classic of the Finnish orchestral repertoire, with performances by every orchestra in the country. A miniature Rite of Spring for the urban night owl set, its infectious rhythms and extrovert atmosphere made it an instant hit. The Clarinet Concerto (1998), though, is where Nuorvala’s interests truly converge. Where the Notturno is a con-

temporary riff on Stravinskyian primitivism, the concerto transgressed by bringing techno music into the concert hall – much to the surprise and delight of its first audience. It is also Nuorvala’s first orchestral work using just intonation, which colors both the orchestral writing as well as the twirling, virtuosic solo part.

Nuorvala’s orchestral output broke new ground with the premiere in May 2014 of Septimalia, his first piece for large orchestra in over two decades, by the Finnish Radio Symphony and Santtu-Matias Rouvali. Though the title sounds like a Roman festival – and the piece is indeed a wild, ecstatic bacchanalia – the composer explains it as “the apotheosis of the natural seventh”, the overtone that colors the music’s sound world. It is the first Finnish orchestral work fully in just intonation, and Nuorvala resorted to some impressive solutions to produce the specific intervals he wants, retuning the entire string body, and including four valveless natural horns in the brass section for their pure intonation. The music is mosaic-like, kaleidoscopic, with its sliding microtonal chorales and lines hocketing around the ensemble in joyous euphony, and it was one of the highlights of the symphony season.

Juhani Nuorvala is a vanguard member of what one could call the New Diversity in Finnish music, a flowering of contradictory, complementary aesthetics at the turn of the millennium that is breathing a new vitality into the country’s once-monolithic music scene. One suspects that his voice, one of Finland’s most original, will continue to reach giddy new heights as he dances through his second half-century.

Matthew Whittall

HIGHLIGHTS

2/2014

1995/99, dur: 130’, sol: S, M, A, T, 2Bar, B, 2 boys, 11.asax.heckelphone. 22-2111-01-1-str Libretto: composer (Fin/Ger)

Aho’s opera, based on a play by Juha Mannerkorpi, is a forceful drama about a nurse who succumbs to the pressures of work and her private life and commits suicide by jumping off a bridge right at the start of the opera. The events leading up this extreme act are revealed as flashbacks that say much about the hardness of our society. Aho’s music does not leave anyone cold; its great emotional content gets right inside the listener and grips its guts.

DANIEL BÖRTZ Marie Antoinette 1997, dur: 152’, sol: 3S, 4Mz, A, 5T, 6Bar, 4B, boy, speaking part, 2232-220-11-0-str Libretto: Claes Fellbom (Sw)

A dramatic opera about Marie Antoinette’s love affair with the Swedish count Axel von Fersen. Börtz and Fellbom use a kind of film technique in this opera, with quick changes between various periods and places.

The music, too, changes rapidly between solos, dialogues, ensembles and mass scenes in a varied tone language that includes everything from dense chamber music and borrowed melodies to the convulsed volcanic musical eruption that depicts the storming of the Bastille.

MIKKO HEINIÖ Käärmeen hetki (The Hour of the Serpent) 2002-05, dur: 140’, sol: 3S, 1Mz, A, T, Bar, BBar, B, coro, 3333-4331-13-1-pf(+cel)-str+quintetto scenico Libretto: Juha Siltanen (Fin)

This opera is a character drama focusing on one woman and four men.

In order to defend her honour, Alice holds on to a lie which leads those around her to their destruction. The work unfolds slowly, like the most sophisticated thriller, and the music proceeds through cantatas, pop songs and Khachaturian-like waltzes, while also taking in beautiful ensemble scenes that respect the old opera tradition.

FREDRIK HÖGBERG The Woman of Cain 2009/13, dur: 135’, sol: S, Mz, 3T, Bar, 2B, speaking part, coro, dancers, 3333-4231-13-1-str Libretto: Tove Alsterdal (Eng)

This is the story about the woman of Cain, whose origin and identity until now have remained unknown. It is a story about the people who believed they were the first people on earth; a drama about truth and lies, forbidden love, the everlasting dream of a paradise and human struggle to control life itself. With irresistible post-modern music and optional spectacular multimedia scenographics noted in the score.

OLLI KORTEKANGAS Marian rakkaus (Maria’s Love) 1996-99, dur: 80’, sol: S, MZ, A, 3T, 2Bar, BBar, mimic, coro, 3333-4331-13-hp-cel(+pf)-str Libretto: Paavo Rintala (Fin)

Maria’s Love is set in 20th century Europe and based on a real story about Maria and a theologian who became a martyr to his faith in the 1940s. It is also a contemporary credo about the force of unconditional love that is able to overcome despair and even death. In places, the music features some almost Wagnerian outbursts and is not lacking in romantic references.

VELIMATTI PUUMALA Anna Liisa 2001-06, dur: 145’, sol: 5S, 3Mz, 2CA, 3T, 4Bar, 3B, coro=singers of the smaller parts, 2121-2220-02-pf-str Libretto: composer & Tiina Käkelä-Puumala (Fin)

Based on the play by Minna Canth of 1895, Anna Liisa is the tragic, timeless story of a secret infanticide and the consequences of the crime. The marriage of a cast-iron libretto and Puumala’s skilful and

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REVIEWS

dramatic music makes this opera a powerful and hypnotic experience. The folk music that bursts out from time to time is also an important element of the opera.

Photo: Saara Vuorjoki/Music Finland

KALEVI AHO Before We All Are Drowned

Operas with female focus

EINOJUHANI RAUTAVAARA Das Sonnenhaus (The House of the Sun) 1990, dur: 100’, sol: 3S, Mz, A, 2T, 2Bar, B, 1111-2210-02-synth-str Libretto: composer (Fin/Ger/Eng)

This story of twin sisters and their tragic fate is not without its comical side. The old immigrants refuse to accept that the world has changed and escape into the splendid memories of their youth. Rautavaara’s music brings together Russian romances, blues, a polonaise and neo-romantic harmonic textures, and the pluralistic elements co-exist in perfect harmony. The musical core of the opera lies in the lovely lyrical ensembles, especially the twins’ duets.

JÜRI REINVERE Purge (Puhdistus) 2011, dur: 120’, sol: 3S, Mz, T, 2Bar, 2B, coro, 3333-4331-14-2-pf(cel)-tape-str Libretto: composer (Fin+Est)

In this acclaimed story by Sofi Oksanen war and oppression drive people to extreme acts. Zara becomes a victim of sex trafficking, while Aliide has experienced a ruthless era in a nightmarish regime. The choir occupies a big role and transforms from wedding guests and forest brothers to Soviet soldiers. Reinvere’s music contrasts the sensitive and subtle with brutality; after this highly successful opera, he received a commission from the Norwegian National Opera.

CARL UNANDER SCHARIN Lysistrata

A gladsome musical shock Our ears were offered goodies, and we sat there hoping they would never end… the word magical sprang to mind. This genre-straddling music and its perfect performance turned out to be the evening’s big gladsome shock.

Norrköpings Tidningar 16.5.

Kimmo Hakola: Clarinet Concerto Norrköpings SO/Anna-Maria Helsing, sol. Christoffer Sundqvist, 15.5.2014, Norrköping, Sweden

1997-98, dur: 90’, sol: 4S, Mz, A, 2T, Bar, B, 1010-1110-04-sax-egtr-synth-str(22211) Libretto: Magnus Carlbring (Sw)

Photo: Marco Feklistoff

REPER TOIR E TIPS

Based on Aristophanes´ comedy about Lysistrata, who, together with the women of Athens and Sparta, initiates a sex strike and takes over the government finances in order to put an end to the Peloponnesian War. This is a witty and entertaining opera in which the music is overflowing with fleeting associations to styles and genres – everything from lofty polyphonic hymns and musical expressionism to musicals and popular music.

EDUARD TUBIN Barbara von Tisenhusen 1968, dur: 120’, sol: S, Mz, 2T, 2Bar, 3B, mixed chorus, 3322-4331-12-0-cel-str Libretto: Jaan Kross (Est/Sw)

The story by Aino Kallas is set in 16th century Estonia. The protagonist is a girl of noble birth who defies her social class when she flees with a scribe. As a punishment for violating the honour of her family she is condemned to death, and is drowned by her own three brothers in a hole in the ice. Tubin’s music is palpably vocal and accompanies the course of events. It begins with happy wedding music in a dancing mood, and ends with icy chords that radiate the chill of death.

LARSJOHAN WERLE Tintomara 1973, dur: 130’, sol: 6S, Mz, A, 4T, 6Bar, 5B, speaking part, 2222-4221-11-1-pf-str Libretto: Leif Söderström (Sw/Eng)

Based on CJL Almqvists’s novel The Queen’s Tiara, the story takes place around the time of the assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden.

The beautiful, androgynous Tintomara is accused of complicity in the conspiracy. She is the object of attraction for both men and women, something which leads to jealousy, insanity and death. Werle depicts the complicated interplay with the enigmatic Tintomara by employing subtle harmonic fluctuations. We can hear both the “contemporary” Werle and romantic melodies that sound almost as if they were taken from the time of Almqvist´s “Songes”.

Exquisite Tally …airy hissing sounds, modernistic playing techniques and metal thunder plates. This is typical for Tally, but also true to Beethoven and quite exquisite in all its lamenting unobtrusiveness. Dagens Nyheter 25.1.

Mirjam Tally: Lament (companion piece to Beethoven’s 9th Symphony) World premiere: Norrlandsoperan SO/Rumon Gamba, 23.1.2014 Umeå, Sweden

Light and Darkness … a pulsating buoyancy with expressive orchestral playing and terrifically deft percussionists.

Västerbottenskuriren 1.3.

Mirjam Tally: Ljuset och mörkret (Light and Darkness) World premiere: Norrlandsoperan SO/Sångkraft Chamber Choir/Risto Joost, 27.2 2014 Umeå, Sweden

Photo: Mats Bäcker

Dramatic setting of poems by Boye Staern has formed his song cycle into a series of more or less dramatically charged scenes in which the vocal part stands out and the words are mostly set in relief against the colourful orchestral texture… Written for contralto Anna Larsson “Sånger om bländvit kärlek” has a dark intensity…The unique lustre of her voice often has a hypnotic effect in combination with Karin Boye´s poems, which are so rich in variety of expression. Helsingborgs Dagblad 10.4.

Benjamin Staern: Sånger om bländvit kärlek (Songs of Dazzingly White Love) World premiere: Helsingborg SO/Stefan Solyom, Anna Larsson, 6.4.2014 Helsingborg, Sweden

Superb Pettersson recording This disc is a revelation… The Swedish master [Allan Pettersson] has found his champion [Christian Lindberg] at last.

Gramophone April 2014 Pettersson’s longest symphony becomes a focused 70-minute rollercoaster in Lindberg’s hands. BBC Music Magazine April 2014

Enigmatic Samuelsson on CD In the incredibly beautiful violin concerto “Bastet the Sun Goddess” the solo part appears as an enigmatic reflexion of light in an almost blackened darkness. A sphinx-like being, which, as the concerto develops, becomes more and more enticing and ambiguous in Anna Lindal´s hands.

Dagens Nyheter 16.4.

She is one of Sweden´s most mysterious contemporary minimalists. It is said that the orchestral piece Singla was inspired by a dish that was dropped, but the work is like a sphinx, a riddle to the very last minute. When Samuelsson is at her best her music is beautiful but frightening, many-headed like a hydra.

Göteborgs Posten 16.4.

Marie Samuelsson: Bastet the Sun Goddess , Float for Orchestra, Fantasia in a Circle CD: Royal Stockholm PO/Mats Rondin, sol. Anna Lindal, violin, Peärls Before Swïne Experience (Myran Prod 01)

This new recording and DVD deserves a wide audience. The Classical Reviewer March 2014 Allan Pettersson: Symphony No. 9 CD: Norrköping SO/Christian Lindberg (BIS 2038)

Tantalising paradoxes… Nuorvala, who began as a lecturer in composition at the Sibelius Academy some years ago, takes two basic pillars of pitch-based composition, harmony and melody, and leads them to opposite extremes. The first minutes of Septimalia sounded quite piquant…the thing that stuck in the mind was the fine falling gesture at the end, in which the microtonal motifs came close to glissandos.

Helsingin Sanomat 18.5.

Captivating Rautavaara

Juhani Nuorvala: Septimalia World premiere: Finnish RSO/Santtu-Matias Rouvali, 16.6.2014 Helsinki, Finland

His [Andrew Kohn] excellent playing skills captivated the whole audience in the hall, especially when the bow hit the string quietly but dramatically, making the audience hold their breaths and listen to the mysterious music moment. In the final movement the audience was shown the angel ascending back into the heavens, as it could be heard or “seen” by the faint, wispy sounds from the last moment before the music faded.

The Daily Athenanaeum 5.3.

Brilliance in Eliasson’s Double Concerto

Einojuhani Rautavaara: Angel of Dusk WVU Symphony Orchestra/ Mitchell Arnold, sol. Andrew Kohn, double bass, 27.2.2014 Morgantown, USA

There is a driving energy here that seems unrestrainable, but the frantic intensity that at times appears in Eliasson´s works is here replaced by an affirmative brilliance, especially when it is performed with Wallin´s stringency and Pöntinen´s forceful clarity of vision. Svenska Dagbladet 18.3.

Anders Eliasson: Concerto for Violin, Piano and Orchestra Royal Stockholm PO/Alexander Shelley, sol. Ulf Wallin, violin, Roland Pöntinen, piano, 14.3.2014 Stockholm, Sweden

Magnificent Madetoja The romantic idiom of the Madetoja symphonies may be overwhelmingly Tchaikovskian one minute and coolly arctic the next… The Okon Fuoko suite has some showy gestures that sound magnificent, and this applies to both the interpretation and the recording. Helsingin Sanomat 30.4.

Leevi Madetoja: Symphonies Nos. 1-3, Okon Fuoko Suite CD: Helsinki PO/John Storgårds (Ondine 1211-2)

Lahti Symphony Orchestra

Quite ingenious St. Matthew Passion It is like one long comforting caress… the scene with St. Peter is a climax with an exquisitely beautiful “Erbarme dich” that bursts into blossom like a nocturnal flower. But the one who stands out in the greatest intimacy is the figure of Christ… a portrait that is among the most moving he [Sandström] has ever composed. Dagens Nyheter 19.4.

This is a brilliant work that can bring one to tears as well as a sincere commitment. Hopefully, it will become a classic in the musical repertoire of Passiontide! Uppsala Nya Tidning 22.4.

Sven-David Sandström: St. Matthew Passion Swedish premieres: Philharmonischer Chor Berlin, Uppsala Academy Chamber Choir, Gävle SO/Stefan Parkman 16-17.4.2014 Stockholm and Uppsala, Sweden Photo: Markus Henttonen

Hypnotic effects

Aho CD – highly recommended I can imagine even relatively inexperienced listeners being pulled into Minea’s increasingly mad vortex…

The [Double Bass] Concerto is darkly magical, and often very exciting, in an obsessive way...The disc is highly recommended! International Record Review, March 2014 Kalevi Aho: Minea, Double Bass Concerto, Symphony No. 15 CD: Lahti SO/Vänskä, Kuusisto, Slobodeniouk, sol. Eero Munter (BIS-SACD 1866)

HIGHLIGHTS

2/2014

N E W P U B L I C AT I O N S

NEW CDs KALEVI AHO

INSTRUMENTAL & CHAMBER

VOCAL & CHORAL

TOMMIE HAGLUND

Finnish Solo Songs / Suomalaisia yksinlauluja 1-2

Sekunder av evighet /Seconds of Eternity

A new edition of a popular collection that inludes solo songs by Sibelius, Kilpinen, Kuula, Merikanto, Madetoja, Sallinen, Rautavaara and others. Available in two volumes for high, middle or low voice

for organ GE 12246

OLLE LINDBERG

Music for and with organ

Anna-Kaisa Pippuri, ob., Petri Komulainen, hn., Jussi Vuorinen, tbn., Kaija Saarikettu, vl., Jan Lehtola, organ BIS-CD 1966 (“Ludus solemnis”)

ANDERS ELIASSON Fantasia per sei strumenti

Vol 1: FG 55009-243-3 (high), 55009-244-0 (middle), 55009-245-7 (low) Vol 2: FG 55009-246-4 (high), 55009-247-1 (middle), 55009-248-8 (low)

Arctic Ouverture

for organ GE 12297

Norrbotten NEO/Petter Sundkvist Studio Acusticum SA05

In medias for Violin Solo

Rebekka Hartmann, violin

JYRKI LINJAMA Barcarolle

Aldilà Records ARCD 004 (“Symphonia Momentum”)

KALEVI AHO

for violin and piano

Rakkaus on musta leijona (Love is a Black Lion))

FG 55011-177-6

for female quartet or small chamber choir Text: Mawlana Rumi, transl. by Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila (Fin)

PIETRO MASCAGNI/ ARR: PER GUNNAR PETERSSON ERS RSSO SONN

naiskvartetille Teksti: Mawlana Rumi, suomentanut Jaakko HämeenǦAnttila

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for mixed choir Text: Elmer Diktonius (Sw)

ENNIO MORRICONE/ ARR: PER GUNNAR PETERSSON

FG 55011-176-9

Gabriel’s Oboe

for organ

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Die Geburt des Täufers (The Birth of the Baptist)

Soli Deo Gloria/Juhani Lamminmäki, sol. Ursula Langmayr, Tuula Paavola, Niall Chorell, Esa Ruuttunen Alba ABCD 370

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LEEVI MADETOJA Symphonies Nos. 1 and 3, Okon Fuoko Suite

Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra/ John Storgårds Ondine ODE 1211-2

GE 12246

ROLF MARTINSSON

JEAN SIBELIUS The Trees / Puusarja Op. 75 FG 55011-174-5

The Flowers / Kukkasarja Op. 85

Till skuggan av en verklighet

MARIE SAMUELSSON

for soprano and string quartet Text: Five poems by Karin Boye (Sw)

Bastet the Sun Goddess, Singla, Fantasia in a Circle

GE 12313 (score and parts)

Royal Stockholm PO/Mats Rondin, Anna Lindal, violin, Peärls before Swïne Experience

SVENDAVID SANDSTRÖM

Myran Prod 01

FG 55011-171-4

The most beloved Sibelius piano-opuses in beautiful albums based on the complete critical edition.

De profundis

MARIE SAMUELSSON

for mixed choir and percussion Text: Ps 130 GE 12473

Two Lives

Commissioned by Västerås Domkyrkoförsamling, first performance on 25 May 2014 at Västerås Cathedral.

for two violins GE 12374

I am – are You?

for solo horn and electronic part/CD Voice on electronic part/CD: Dana Johnson Text: Magnus William Olsson (Eng) GE 12058 (score/CD)

ROBERT SUND Kärlek och drömmar

BENJAMIN STAERN

Four poems by Erik Axel Karlfeldt (Sw) for mixed choir SATB a cappella

Opposing Dance

for flute and guitar

GE 12501

GE 12502

EDUARD TUBIN Works for Violin and Piano, Vol. II

Sigrid Kuulmann, violin, Marka Martin, piano Estonian Record Production ERP 6112

SCORES DANIEL BÖRTZ Sinfonia 12 GE 11953

JÖRGEN DAFGÅRD Caprism

Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra

ARJA SUORSARANNANMÄKI

GE 12242

Colour Keys the Piano ABC, Teacher’s Guide A FG 55011-169-1 (in English), 55011-168-4 (in Finnish)

ROLF MARTINSSON Golden Harmony – Soprano Saxophone Concerto No. 1

CSABA SZILVAY  ALFREDO PIATTI ATTI AT TI

for soprano saxophone and orchestra

Piattini

GE 12162

Cello fingerboard orientation using an etude by Piatti: one bar, one page, one lesson.

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FG 55011-157-8

GÉZA SZILVAY Kreutzerini

42 Mini-studies for violin – supplementary material for the Colurstrings Violin ABC Book B. FG 55011-173-8

Géza Szilvay COLOURSTRINGS

KREUTZERINI Supplementary material for the Colourstrings Violin ABC Book B 42 Finger Exercises for perfect intonation in the first position

Gehrmans Musikförlag AB

Fennica Gehrman Oy Ab

Box 42026, SE-126 12 Stockholm, Sweden Tel. +46 8 610 06 00 • Fax +46 8 610 06 27 www.gehrmans.se • info@gehrmans.se Hire: hire@gehrmans.se Web shop: www.gehrmans.se Sales (GE publications): sales@gehrmans.se

PO Box 158, FI-00121 Helsinki, Finland Tel. +358 10 3871 220 • Fax +358 10 3871 221 www.fennicagehrman.fi • info@fennicagehrman.fi Hire: hire@fennicagehrman.fi Web shop: www.fennicagehrman.fi Sales (FG publications): kvtilaus@kirjavalitys.fi (dealers)