Nordic Highlights 3 2017

NORDIC

HIGHLIGHTS

3/2017

NEWSLETTER FROM GEHRMANS MUSIKFÖRLAG & FENNICA GEHRMAN

Olli Kortekangas’ opera premiere

Sven-David Sandström at 75

Edicson Ruiz’s 25th performance

Angela Hewitt is to be the soloist on 5 October in the world premiere in Ottawa, Canada, of the piano concerto Nameless Seas by Matthew Whittall. Conducting the National Arts Centre Orchestra will be Hannu Lintu. The performance is part of the ‘Ideas of North’ festival celebrating Canada’s 150th and Finland’s 100th birthdays. The Lapland Chamber Orchestra will also be part of the programme, with Kalevi Aho’s 14th symphony Rituals .

The Whittall concerto was commissioned jointly by PianoEspoo Festival and the National Arts Centre Corporation.

The Finnish premiere is scheduled on 10 November by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra with Risto-Matti Marin as the soloist.

It will be his 25th performance, when Edicson Ruiz gives the German premiere of Rolf Martinsson’s Double Bass Concerto with the Deutsche Radiophilharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslauten in June of next year. The Australian premiere took place last April with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, and November will see the Chinese premiere with the Hong Kong Sinfonietta.

Ruiz has performed the concerto earlier with orchestras in Venezuela, Japan, Taiwan, Sweden, Spain, Austria, France and Hungary.

Tango solo on stage

Colourstrings in Apple iBook Store Colourstrings goes digital! The Violin and Cello ABC books are now available as digital publications in the Apple iBook Store. In addition to the Violin A–D and Cello A–D tutors, the store also sells Violin Scales books 1–3, Kreutzerini, and Piattini.

Timo-Juhani Kyllönen

PHOTO: MAARIT KYTÖHARJU

Soprano Marika Krook and a chamber ensemble from Stockholm are to perform the monologue opera Tango solo by Timo-Juhani Kyllönen in January 2018, under the auspices of Vaasa Opera.

Premiered in 2011, the opera has a libretto (in Spanish) by Maritza Núñez and the events are set in Buenos Aires by night. The stage director in Vaasa will be Jorma Uotinen, and the production includes also two dancers.

Harri Vuori Composer of the Year The Finnish Music Publishers Association has chosen Harri Vuori as Classical Composer of the Year. The news was announced in Helsinki on 12 September.

According to the jury “Vuori is a unique and distinctive voice in Finnish classical music. He successfully combines modernism with nature mysticism, robust structures and enchanting timbres. His music, both orchestral and chamber, also offers surprises but is, in its profoundest meanings, rooted in the classical music tradition”.

NORDIC

HIGHLIGHTS

3/2017

NEWSLE T TER FROM GEHRMANS MUSIKFÖRLAG & FENNICA GEHRMAN

Sound samples , video clips and other material are available at www.gehrmans.se/highlights www.fennicagehrman.fi/highlights Cover photos: from Rautavaara’s Cantus arcticus ballet.

Finnish National Opera and Ballet (Mirka Kleemola), Sven-David Sandström (Elias Sjögren), Olli Kortekangas (Saara Vuorjoki/Music Finland) Editors: Henna Salmela and Kristina Fryklöf Translations: Susan Sinisalo and Robert Carroll Design: Göran Lind ISSN 2000-2742 (Print), ISSN 2000-2750 (Online) Printed in Sweden by TMG Sthlm, Bromma 2017

HIGHLIGHTS

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PHOTO: NOHELY OLIVEROS

Angela Hewitt to premiere Whittall

The Princess’ Tale Benjamin Staern has, together with the librettist Mi Tyler, written a sequel to Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale. The new work takes up where Stravinsky/Ramuz’s story left off, but in Staern/Tyler’s work it is the Princess who has the leading role. The instrumentation is the same as in Stravinsky’s work, and there are musical allusions here to jazz, funk, chorales, Argentinian tango, a waltz in simultaneous duple and triple time and other surprising features.

Historien om en prinsessa/The Princess’ Tale is available in both a Swedish and an English version. The work was commissioned by Musik i Syd for the Malmö Chamber Festival and was premiered on 23 September.

Agreement with Esa Pietilä Fennica Gehrman has entered into a publishing agreement with Esa Pietilä, a well-known saxophonist operating with different musical genres in a creative way.

As a composer, he has broadened the image of contemporary music with jazz. He has been commissioned to write works for the Avanti! Chamber Orchestra, Zag­ ros Ensemble, UMO Jazz Orchestra and others, and has also written music for solo instruments, instrumental groups, dance projects and films. The new agreement covers 10 works, including Graffiti Play for chamber orchestra and contemporary jazz trio, and Hunt! for saxophone and percussion quintet.

PHOTO: MAARIT KYTÖHARJU

PHOTO: PETER SEARLE

NEWS

Commemorating Anders Eliasson

PHOTO: JOSEF DOUKKALI

In March BIS records released the highly acclaimed CD “4 x Anders Eliasson” with the chamber ensemble Norrbotten Neo, that will be touring Sweden this autumn with a portrait concert to mark the year that Eliasson would have turned 70. NEOS Records has recently released a CD with Eliasson’s “Complete Works for Piano and Harpsichord” featuring pianist Andreas Skouras.

8 November will see the posthumous premiere of the soprano saxophone version of Eliasson’s Symphony No. 3 – Sinfonia Concertante. Anders Paulsson is the soloist with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra conducted by Johannes Gustavsson.

The concerto will also be recorded on the BIS label.

PHOTO: MARCO FEKLISTOFF

New piano editions

Tally – featured composer

Fennica Gehrman has published several new piano collections. A third volume was added to the popular Finnish Favourites for Piano series, this time consisting of modern classics. The piano collection Ihanuuksien ihmemaa (folk-song arrangements of beloved Finnish melodies) by Jukka Nykänen has been widely admired and elegantly crosses musical borders. The most popular Jean Sibelius piano miniatures are now all available in a single book; critical editions of the Tree and Flower suites had already been published earlier.

Mirjam Tally is featured composer with the Västerås Sinfonietta this season. This autumn we can listen to Lightfields and her companion piece to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Lament. A work commissioned by the Sinfonietta will be premiered this coming spring. The Royal Stockholm Philharmonic will also perform Tally’s Lament under the direction of Franz Welser-Möst in February of next year.

Mikko Heiniö at 70

Marie Samuelsson’s septet Förnimmelser/Notions had its American premiere in July in a packed summer garden at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The New Juilliard Ensemble played under Joel Sachs. Next February Sarah Ioannides will conduct the Tacoma Symphony Orchestra in the US premiere of Eros Effect and Solidarity – Love Trilogy No. 3. During the summer the CD recording of Samuelsson’s complete Love Trilogy has begun, to be released on Daphne Records.

PHOTO: JUSSI VIERIMAA

Samuelsson’s US premieres

Composer Mikko Heiniö will be 70 in May 2018. To mark the occasion, the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra has commissioned him to write a third symphony, a Sinfonia concertante for percussion and orchestra to be heard at a birthday concert in Turku with his Maestoso for orchestra. A Heiniö premiere is also scheduled for December 2017, when the Laulu-Miehet Male Voice Choir will perform the Amen for male voice choir it has commissioned from him.

PHOTO: ESTER SORRI

Congratulations Karin Rehnqvist Karin Rehnqvist recently celebrated her 60th birthday. With her music, which has come to be renowned especially for the cross-fertilization of art and folk music, she has become one of Sweden’s most sought-after composers. Gehrmans has published her later choral works, such as Teile dich Nacht (2002) to a text by Nelly Sachs, a commission from the Donaueschingen Festival, and Salve Regina – Heavenly Queen (2007), composed for the Netherlands Chamber Choir and Nieuw Ensemble. The Swedish Radio commissioned the striking work Haya! – Song to the Joy of the Day (2009) and the Latvian Radio Choir premiered Tenebrae (2010), to a text by Paul Celan. Her latest published choral work is When I Close My Eyes I Dream of Peace, where the dream of peace is expressed in twelve different languages and the melodies are inspired by the musical traditions of each respective country. It was last performed during the World Symposium of Choral Music in Barcelona in July by the St. Jacob Vocal Ensemble.

PREMIERES October-December 2017 JYRKI LINJAMA

Pastoral for organ

Liisa Partanen. 1.10. Tikkakoski, Finland

SVEN-DAVID SANDSTRÖM

Symphony No. 4 – A Luther Symphony

St. Matteus SO/Sonny Jansson, sol. Olle Persson, baritone. 1.10. Stockholm, Sweden Under en kvinnas hjärta/ Under a Woman’s Heart – chamber opera

Libretto: Leif Janzon Piteå Church Opera, Norrbotten Neo/David Björkman, sol. Tove Dahlberg, Ulrika Tenstam, Stephanie Lippert, Hege Gustava Tjønn. 14.10. Piteå, Sweden Three Songs to Texts by Rainer Maria Rilke

Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir/Mogens Dahl 5.11. Copenhagen, Denmark

MATTHEW WHITTALL

Nameless Seas (Piano Concerto)

National Arts Centre Orchestra/Hannu Lintu, sol. Angela Hewitt. 5.10. Ottawa, Canada

OLLI KORTEKANGAS

Maamerkit

Oulainen Youth Choir/Tapani Tirilä 6.10. Oulainen, Finland The Lost Melody

– Story for Narrator and Orchestra St. Anthony Civic Orchestra/Carol Jensen 5.11. St. Anthony Village, Minnesota, USA

TOBIAS BROSTRÖM

Theatron

version for two percussion soloists and wind orchestra Östgöta Symphonic Wind Ensemble/Christoffer Nobin, sol. Johan Bridger, Patrick Raab. 12.10. Linköping, Sweden

JACOB MÜHLRAD

Kaddish for mixed choir and soloist

Swedish Radio Choir/Peter Dijkstra, sol. Eva Dahlgren 14.10. Stockholm, Sweden

ANDERS ELIASSON

Symphony No. 3 – Sinfonia Concertante

version for soprano saxophone and orchestra Gothenburg SO/Johannes Gustavsson, sol. Anders Paulsson. 8.11. Gothenburg, Sweden

LOTTA WENNÄKOSKI

Susurrus (Guitar Concerto)

Tapiola Sinfonietta/Mario Venzago, Kymi Sinfonietta/ Rumon Gamba, sol. Petri Kumela 10.-11.11. Espoo & Kotka, Finland Uniin asti

Finnish RSO, Polytech Choir/Hannu Lintu 6.12. Helsinki, Finland

VELI-MATTI PUUMALA

Root

Helsinki PO/Susanna Mälkki 22.11. Helsinki, Finland

KIRMO LINTINEN

Concerto for Orchestra

Joensuu City Orchestra/Jurjen Hempel 23.11. Joensuu, Finland

KAI NIEMINEN

String Quartet ”Gestures of Winter”

Meri-Lappi String Quartet. 30.11. Kemi, Finland

MIKKO HEINIÖ

Amen for male choir and tubular bell

Laulu-Miehet/Matti Hyökki. 3.12. Helsinki, Finland HIGHLIGHTS

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Olli Kortekangas:

“It’s not art’s job to say who is right and who is wrong.”

PHOTO: SAARA VUORJOKI/MUSIC FINLAND

Olli Kortekangas has a catalogue of some 150 works. One of its major categories is vocal music, from choral works and solo songs to operas. His latest opera, Veljeni vartija (My Brother’s Keeper), awaits its premiere in February 2018.

A

s a child, I played the piano and cello.

When I was 13 or 14, I began writing little miniatures of my own. I attended the Espoo Music Institute and Tapiola Secondary School. No one really pressed me to compose, but I got terrific encouragement.

– I arrived at the Sibelius Academy via Candomino. Einojuhani Rautavaara was writing a work for the choir, and the leader, Tauno Satomaa, asked him if a certain 17-year-old could come and show him his compositions. Rautavaara took me on as a pupil, first privately and then at the Academy. At that time, the Academy was still conservative, but Einojuhani wasn’t at all. For him, every pupil was special and he helped them do whatever they wanted. Only later have I grasped many of the things he taught. They stuck in my mind but weren’t realised until years later.

– I read a lot even as a child, and we often went to the theatre as a family. With my choral background, I’ve also been interested in words, language and the human voice. Text and language are part of my own vocal music, not only at the level of narrative and semantics, but also of colour, as a musical element.

– Stylistically, I regard myself as a successor of Modernism. Though my music has elements taken from here and there in the history of music, it’s enough for me that, quality-wise, they are intrinsically the best I can do, and each work follows its own agenda. The most important thing is the ability to communicate: if you can’t communicate, the music won’t take place in the listener’s head.

Olli Kortekangas’s latest opera, My Brother’s Keeper, is a commission from the Tampere Hall.

The libretto is by Tuomas Parkkinen, and the opera will be premiered in Tampere with SanttuMatias Rouvali conducting in February 2018.

– I got a call from Tampere nearly ten years ago asking whether I’d be interested in doing an opera about Finland’s Civil War. I didn’t know Tuomas Parkkinen then, and 2018 sounded a really long HIGHLIGHTS

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way away. I always get enthused about all kinds of things, so I got enthused about this suggestion, too, and began turning it over in my mind. I did, however, have reservations about the Civil War, because it seemed a huge subject. Just as with my opera Daddy’s Girl, I began not with the big picture but with a little one and the big feelings of a little person. Starting with the little, the idea began to work.

– Even if the topic is tragic and serious, an opera should have some light relief. Parkkinen is a wonderful satirist. He’s written plays about big topics, Jesus, death and love, but by means of satire.

Right from the beginning in doing My Brother’s Keeper, we debated ways of showing different aspects of the subject. We didn’t want to make it a farce, but in addition to being gloomy, it had to have some grotesque, satirical elements. Monica Groop once said to me that if you want to write a really tragic scene, it’s a good idea to put something truly hilarious before or after it. That’s one of the many things I’ve learnt from singers.

A hundred years may be a suitable time to deal with a subject as traumatic as a civil war. The way historians approach the subject has also changed in a century.

– The 1918 war is still a delicate subject even now. Along the way I’ve realised there are people who weren’t even born then but for whom it’s painful because the families haven’t processed it. I’ve also noticed that most of the people I’ve talked to at some point start telling me their own family’s experience of the Civil War. – There’s a story in my own family that reflects both tragedy and national healing. A certain farmer was murdered by the Reds in an extremely brutal way. As a consequence, there was a lot of bitterness about them. Then years later, the farm got a daughter-in-law from the Red side, and she was accepted as part of the family.

– Tampere, what’s more, has a special position as the scene of events in the Civil War. My Brother’s Keeper is to be performed only a few hundred

metres from where the worst fighting took place.

The opera’s music also harks back a hundred years.

– It was an opportunity too good to miss! On the “engine-room side”, the harmonic, melodic and motivic structure is really strict, but at surface level there’s all sorts of things – fair ground music, cakewalk and other such things. The music also has what I call its Tammerkoski, alluding to the fastflowing river through Tampere. It’s a lengthwise, endless flow right through the work.

One of the finest things in the process of making an opera is, according to Kortekangas, the joining of idea and practice. The music is born in the composer’s study, but he can collaborate with the people who will put it into practice all along the way. As in his other operas, he was able to have his say about the casting, and it’s a good combination of old and new hands.

– As you get to know the characters in the opera and hang out with them, they become real people, until finally you have to get away from them.

For me, it’s important for a character, regardless of whether they’re good or bad, to have something I can relate to. At least the main characters must undergo some kind of development, and that will in turn affect the singing. For example, the way the female lead in the opera, Amanda Rossi, grows deeper and more serious is expressed in the music.

Tuuli Takala, who sings the part, told me that for her, it’s easier on the voice if the coloraturas are towards the beginning, and it just so happened that the idea fully coincides with the character’s development.

So can anything be learnt from history?

– I hope so. We can’t undo that period in time, but talking about it can, I believe, have a therapeutic effect. My Brother’s Keeper is not, however, a historical cavalcade, and its job is not to say who was right and who was wrong. That’s not art’s job at all.

This opera’s job is simply to tell the story of these little people in this setting, and hence something crucial about the period itself. I wanted to compose a powerful work but to let people draw their own conclusions about it.

L O T TA E M A N U E L S S O N

Footnote

Veljeni vartija (My Brother’s Keeper) World premiere: 16.2.2018, Tampere Opera, Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra, cond. Santtu-Matias Rouvali, sol. Tuuli Takala, Ville Rusanen, Tuomas Katajala, Juha Kotilainen, Päivi Nisula, Virpi Räisänen etc., dir. Tuomas Parkkinen. Other performances: 18.2., 21.2., 24.2., 1.3. & 3.3.

Sven-David Sandström – the assiduous composer

PHOTO: ELIAS SJÖGREN

“Get up a quarter of an hour earlier in the morning. Then you can compose ten seconds more of music. In a week this amounts to a minute, in a year perhaps several entire works”, says Sven-David Sandström who on the threshold of his 75th birthday feels more inspired and creative than ever.

H

is opus list will soon number 500 works.

Not that he was exactly a child prodigy; he did not establish himself as a composer until around the age of thirty. But then all the more emphatically. His breakthrough work, Through and Through, met with international acclaim when it was performed by the Concertgebouw Orchestra in 1974, and led to the BBC’s commission of Utmost, which was performed under the direction of Pierre Boulez.

Actually, Sven-David Sandström had been secretly composing almost daily for his drawer throughout the entire decade of the sixties. Then, at the age of 26, he was accepted as a student in Ingvar Lidholm’s composition class at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. This was a late start, perhaps, but he caught up quickly.

Today, almost half a century later, Sandström is more creatively active than ever. More than anyone else, one is tempted to add. The scope within the field of art music remains enormous: from chamber music to opera. Three new solo concertos with orchestra – for flute, violin and piano – have been premiered within the course of a year. At the same time, in 2016, there was the world premiere of the latest in a series of Sandström’s oratorios, The Passion of St. John, this time disengaged from the mighty Bachian models that he has so often resisted. Parallel to this, two newly written chamber operas have been brought to the stage: The Performance (Föreställningen) and the recently completed Under a Woman’s Heart (Under en kvinnas hjärta).

In addition to these, a number of choral and chamber works as well as songs have assumed shape in Sandström’s beautiful handwriting. All this as he concurrently holds a professorship in composition at the University of Indiana at Bloomington; a position that he has held, with some interruptions, for nearly twenty years. And now he has been asked to stay on one more year.

– I returned to Sweden in 2008, anticipating that I would be engaged here at home after a long stint as an American professor of music. There actually were one or two commissions, but it was not enough for me.

Oh well, the same year the Royal Swedish Opera put on his full-length opera Batseba. And he set himself a prodigious task: to compose works, in the spirit of J. S. Bach, for the 72 days of the ecclesiastical year. Half of the works were intended for Stockholm Cathedral and Gustaf Sjökvist’s choirs, and the other half for a less pretentious suburban choir under the direction of Mona Ehntorp.

– A powerful, amusing and meaningful project!

His pace of production was set at one work every other week, and Sandström, disciplined as he was, never missed a deadline. Like many of his colleagues throughout music history he found that the simple, three-part choral movements were the most difficult to achieve. He is therefore especially satisfied that just these have been the most in demand.

Sven-David Sandström has mastered the choir as a medium like no other, mainly thanks to his practical experience as second tenor in the Hägersten Motet Choir. He had to give up his singing, however, when in 1985 he was offered, and accepted, the sole professorship in the country in composition, at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm.

He has by now taught there for thirty-five years; in addition he has taken the initiative to establish composition classes on the island of Gotland and in Falun in the province Dalarna.

Actually, he likes to teach and have a job to go to.

– You get response, you become good friends with your students and they remember you. And you have to be articulate, give reasons for your artistic choices and decisions. I feel deeply that I am privileged to have these rotations, between teaching and composing, and the alternate residences in the USA and Sweden.

– And not the least important is my family, who are very understanding.

No, all composers do not have this. But they can all discipline themselves, says Sven-David.

– Get up a quarter of an hour earlier in the morning! Then you can compose ten seconds more of music. In a week this amounts to a minute, in a year perhaps several entire works.

We see there the key to the famed productivity of the clockmaker’s son, Sven-David Sandström.

Another distinctive feature of his tone language throughout the years is the sudden (for some downright shocking) change in style. As in the un-

disguised romantic touch in the Cello Concerto and the Piano Fantasia from 1989. Or the many choral works inspired by Purcell, Handel and above all Bach – a way for Sandström to link up with mainstream music history and tradition.

– It took a while before I began listening to older music. For a long time I was only interested in modern music.

Today, in the postmodern and pluralistic 21st century, few people care about stylistic purity.

Sandström has increasingly come to recognize spontaneity in the compositional process, and he also encourages his students to have the same attitude.

– Make the most of your spontaneous ideas!

They may remain just whims; that can be developed – but not for too long.

Having been exposed to American music for many years, he says that the strong attachment of art music to the universities often entails an attitude of right or wrong.

– There they can have some problems with my music when it is rough and difficult…

It comes naturally now for Sandström to compose to texts in English, as he often does, and this is something that has left a mark on his phrasing.

Made it softer. And reading often triggers him to start composing. In the USA he devoured Niklas Rådström’s ”The Book”, a comprehensive poetical interpretation of the Biblical narratives. Right now Sandström is in the middle of creating a ”gigantic opera” in close collaboration with Rådström. The fact that no one has commissioned it yet doesn’t worry him. This broad, epic music drama just has to be written.

On the threshold of his 75th birthday SvenDavid Sandström feels more inspired and creative than ever. And he is in good trim, going to the gym every day. For he wants to stay alert, to be quite simply Sweden’s oldest composer.

– I intend to compete with Elliott Carter!

The American Nestor wrote his last work at the age of 103.

C A M I L L A LU N D B E R G

Selected Sandström premieres 2017-2018 Five Pieces for Piano and Orchestra, 22.3.2017 Gothenburg, Sweden Symphony No. 4 – A Luther Symphony, 1.10.2017 Stockholm, Sweden Under a Woman’s Heart – chamber opera, 14.10.2017 Piteå, Sweden Three Songs to texts by Rainer Maria Rilke for mixed choir, 5.11.2017 Copenhagen, Denmark Yesterday’s Morning – Symphony No. 5, autumn 2018 Norrköping, Sweden Trombone Concerto, autumn 2018 Stockholm, Sweden HIGHLIGHTS

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REPER TOIRE TIPS

3323-4000-str The folk music inspired The Herd Maiden’s Dance is a virtuosic and striking piece, sparkling with joy. It is a display of genuine orchestral fireworks that encloses a somewhat more tranquil, elegiac middle section. A favorite encore piece for Swedish orchestras on tour.

TOBIAS BROSTRÖM

Beatnik (2015) Dur: 4’

Large orchestra: 3233-4331-03-hp-pf(opt)-str Small orchestra: 2222-2100-01-pf(opt)-str This is a piece with an urban attitude, bursting with energy and vivacity. It is fast, and rhythmic, continually alternating between 5/8, 3/4 and 7/8 time. Originally written as a virtuosic encore piece (”Sputnik”) for trumpeter Håkan Hardenberger, Broström was later asked to prepare a version solely for orchestra (”Beatnik”), which now exists in versions for large and small orchestra.

ARMAS JÄRNEFELT

Praeludium (1900) Dur: 3’

1121-2200-11-str Preludium is a popular, short orchestral piece and alongside his evergreen Berceuse brought Järnefelt international fame during the golden years of salon or ‘palm court’ music. It opens with a bright energy and rhythmic drive and returns to it after a brief, lyrical section leaving the listeners in a cheerful mood.

ERLAND VON KOCH

Nordic Capriccio (1943) Dur: 6’

2222-2210-10-strings Inspired by a folk motif from the Swedish province Dalarna, this piece opens with a “troll-drum” timpani solo which later returns linking the various sections together. It is a spectacular mixture of whirling dances and sweeping beautiful strings. A highly effective and suggestive piece.

LARS-ERIK LARSSON

Epilogue from A Winter’s Tale (1937-38) Dur: 4’ 2222-2210-00-1str

Romance from Pastoral Suite (1938) Dur: 4’

string orchestra During the years 1937-1938 Lars-Erik Larsson wrote two much loved orchestral suites. In these we find two of the most glittering gems in the treasure trove of Swedish music; the melancholy and meditative Epilogue from A Winter’s Tale and Romance from The Pastoral Suite, an adagio for strings. These are two lyrical, romantic, lovely and delicate pieces in which Larsson exhibits his unique feeling for melodies.

LEEVI MADETOJA

Elegy (1909) Dur: 4’30

str Elegy is part of the Symphonic Suite, Op. 4 and Madetoja’s earliest work for orchestra.

It is his most often-recorded and best-known miniature and is wistfully melodic in a way reminiscent of Tchaikovsky. Its premiere was well received in its day and the work was described as the masterpiece of a budding orchestral composer.

2222-2210-11-hp-cel-str + tape The second movement of Rautavaara’s most popular orchestral work serves as a dip into his aural landscape.

This romantically opulent piece includes birdsong in dialogue with the orchestra and is a work of expansive melodic arches and pure sound magic.

NIKOLAI RIMSKY-KORSAKOV/ ARR. KALEVI AHO

The Flight of the Bumble-Bee (1900/arr. 2008) Dur: 2’

for flute and orchestra: 2222-2220-10-str This virtuoso version of the Bumble-Bee (written as an encore piece for Sharon Bezaly) is a treat for any concert featuring a flute. A skilled orchestrator, Kalevi Aho has a flair for idiomatic and ear-opening arrangements. And perhaps this piece is, after all, better suited to the flute than to the tuba.

ALBERT SCHNELZER

… turn them into instruments… from Symphony No. 1 – Azraeel (2007) Dur: 3’30’’

2222-2200-01-str The fourth movement of Schnelzer’s First Symphony – Azraeel is somewhat scherzo-like, dramatic, rhythmical and with an air of the dance. The main theme alternates between 7/8 and 6/8 time and, as so often with Schnelzer, one finds influences from Balkan music in the tone language. The piece ends a little unexpectedly and with a note of humour.

JEAN SIBELIUS

The Countess’s Portrait/Grevinnans konterfej (1906) Dur: 4’

for recitation (opt) and string orchestra Composed on the initiative of a Ladies’ Association for a soirée in Vaasa, Finland, this exquisite and beautiful piece is a melodrama that can be performed with or without recitation. The poem by Zachris Topelius adds to the tranquil, delicate mood created by the strings.

The Spruce from ‘The Trees Op. 75’ (1922/arr.1942) Dur: 2’

1111-1000-01-01-hp(or pf)-str (arr. Ernest Pingoud) The orchestration of Five Pieces for Piano, Op. 75 is a charming suite consisting of five short movements: When the Rowan Tree Blossoms, The Lonely Pine, The Aspen, The Birch and The Spruce.

Each one is a perfect encore piece, especially The Spruce, which is one of Sibelius’s best-loved melodies.

EDUARD TUBIN

Setu tants (Dance from Setu) from Estonian Dance Suite (1938/57) Dur: 4’

1221-2210-10-hp-strings Setu tants is built on three dance tunes from the district of Setumaa in South Eastern Estonia. It starts out lively and get even livelier as the tempo increases throughout the piece until the final climax.

Hakola astounds again Hakola astounds his listeners again and again, once again plucking an ace out of his sleeve and leading the listener via several tricks back to his initial idiom.

With all sorts of things along the way, powerful effects, quotations from Wagner’s Ring…

Rondo 8/2017 Kimmo Hakola: Wind Quintet

World premiere: Arktinen hysteria, 13.7.2017 Salo, Finland

Deeply impressive cantata Migrations must have caused many in its initial audiences to reflect upon their own origins, and it retains its ability to touch the heart in this recording.

FMQ May 2017 Olli Kortekangas: Migrations

CD: Minnesota Orchestra/Osmo Vänskä, YL Male Voice Choir, sol. Lilli Paasikivi (BIS SACD-9048)

Passion with class In the centre stands John the Evangelist, sung with text-driven power by counter tenor Daniel Carlsson. The choice of voice type provides a floating gender that suits the young disciple... An unexpected tuba extends the acoustic space behind the string quartet... Everything is of the highest class, is quite delicious...

Opus 76/2017 Sven-David Sandström: The Passion of St. John

CD: Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir, Brooklyn Rider, sol. Daniel Carlsson, counter tenor, Lars Møller, baritone, Jens Bjørn Larsen, tuba

Exotic flute concerto The flute concerto “Shimmering Blue” has the most exotic feel... the soloist Wissam Boustany was clearly very enamoured with this almost erotically charged music and made the most of that effect. He was no less impressive in the fast outer parts where the flute flew like a swallow over the billowing sound of the orchestra.

Helsingborgs Dagblad 11.5.

Rolf Martinsson: Shimmering Blue

Helsingborg SO/Christoffer Nobin, sol. Wissam Boustany, flute, 10.5.2017 Helsingborg Sweden

DAG WIRÉN

Marcia (1937) from Serenade for Strings Dur: 4’30’’

In Wirén’s popular Marcia the lively music moves forward with a light step and in excellent spirits. The effervescent and jolly main theme was used as the theme melody of the BBC arts programme Monitor in the 60s after which its popularity spread. The piece is one of the most frequently performed Swedish orchestral pieces internationally.

PHOTO: SOPHIE CARR

HUGO ALFVÉN

Vallflickans dans/The Herd Maiden’s Dance from the ballet the Mountain King (1923) Dur: 4’

EINOJUHANI RAUTAVAARA

Melancholy from Cantus arcticus (1972) Dur: 4’

PHOTO: KAAPO HAKOLA

Encore pieces for orchestra

REVIEWS

Wissam Boustany HIGHLIGHTS

3/2017

Bergman surprises

Power and spirit in the opera Luther

Even at his most expressive moments, Bergman is surprisingly lyrical…Aspekter impressed with its finely-tuned language and the variety of its expression… Such a short distance to Scriabin’s universe.

Hufvudstadsbladet 31.5.

Erik Bergman: Piano Music

The opera has a force and spirit that create a great sense of community…The piously beautiful Grace Song is a peaceful haven amid the world’s grim turmoil…The orchestra maintains an evocative rhythmic beat that is the elemental and often primitive-like source of energy in the music.

Helsingin Sanomat 3.6.

Kari Tikka: Luther

The extensive Fogliame for piano quartet is a wondrous piece: a river of music whose opening throbbing feels ever-present even when it’s not sounding (echoes of Sibelius’s Seventh) and with plenty of long-form counterpoint that tells you this composer means business…

Gramophone June 2017 Anders Eliasson: Fogliame

CD: Norrbotten Neo (BIS-2270 ”4 x Eliasson”)

Images of the northern soul The best combination of music and dance was provided by Virpi Pahkinen in Cantus arcticus based on the music by Einojuhani Rautavaara. Rautavaara’s evergreen song of praise to northern nature with its birdsong already provides plenty of themes … and there was no lack of beauty and the feelings aroused by nature in the movements and images.

Rondo 7/2017 Einojuhani Rautavaara: Cantus arcticus

Cauê Frias and Mai Komori in the Cantus arcticus ballet

On the verge of eternity

Samuelsson’s elegiac seasons

The work has a dramatic character with a horn section of noisy battle horns, where the bassoons articulate particularly ominous tones. Mühlrad’s exploration of “the verge of eternity” offers temperament and vigorous action with a cinematic sound.

Norrköpings Tidningar 1.6.

Jacob Mühlrad: On the Verge of Eternity

An elegiac comment to one of classical music’s most loved pieces… Baroque meets modernism here with electronic elements and does so in a stunningly dialogical way...

Dagens Nyheter 1.7.

Marie Samuelsson: Five Seasons

Norrköping SO/Michael Bartosch, 31.5 2017 Norrköping, Sweden

Stunning Haglund CD A simply stunning disc… This is the kind of music that makes you believe there is a future and relevance for contemporary music…this is some of the greatest contemporary music of the 21st century to date… Unique and powerful music, stunningly played and recorded – a disc of the month and the disc of the year for me.

Music Web International July 2017 In high voltage mode, but with a slow pulse, the searching cello song is set free in a space that is extended in a series of violently crashing transformations. It is quiet and shaking at the same time and infinitely beautiful…

Dagens Nyheter 30.6.

Tommie Haglund: Flaminis Aura, Il regno degli spiriti, Sollievo (dopo la tempesta), Serenata per Diotima

CD: Gothenburg SO/David Afkham, sol. Ernst Simon Glaser, cello, Malmö SO/Joachim Gustafsson, Trio ZilliacusPerssonRaitinen (BIS-2025)

World premiere: Musica Vitae/SirkkaLiisa Kaakinen-Pilch, 28.6.2017 Båstad Chamber Music Festival, Sweden

Ethereal and tender Soulfully conveyed by a tight septet consisting of clarinet, bassoon, horn, violin, viola, cello and bass, those musical musings had the ethereality and tenderness that come with cherished memories while still being accompanied by an unmistakable touch of Nordic coolness.

Classical Music Rocks 12.7.

Marie Samuelsson: Förnimmelser/Notions

US Premiere: The New Juilliard Ensemble/Joel Sachs, 9.7.2017 New York, USA

Erkki Melartin’s Aino The opera Aino (1909) by Melartin is an ecstatic song of praise to nature in which National-Romanticism tinged with Impressionism happily combines with Wagnerian anguished chromaticism and myth.

Helsingin Sanomat 28.5.

Erkki Melartin: Aino

Finnish National Opera/Klaus Mäkelä, sol. Helena Juntunen, Juha Kotilainen, Jyrki Anttila, Anna-Kristiina Kaappola, Jeni Packalen, 26.5.2017 Helsinki, Finland

Wennäkoski premiere at the Proms Flounce is easily one the most imaginative and unusual of the Proms Last Night commissions of recent years. It may work as a concert-opener, but – unlike most of its predecessors – that’s by no means all that it is, and for that she deserves kudos and congratulations.

5against4.com 9-2017 It was a witty scherzo which managed to weave some unexpected formal twists into a span of only five minutes, and strike the right upbeat note without sinking into cliché… deft and surprising…

Daily Telegraph 10.9.

By recent tradition, the Last Night opens with a premiere. The commission presumably calls for a five-minute work, in a light, scherzo character, but with plenty of action for all the sections of the orchestra… Lotta Wennäkoski ticked all those boxes with her Flounce, but also managed to project a personality through all the gimmicks…all imaginatively woven together into a concise and well-crafted score. theartsdesk.com 10.9.

Lotta Wennäkoski: Flounce

World premiere: BBC SO/Sakari Oramo, 9.9.2017 London, UK (Last Night of the Proms)

PHOTO: MARK EARTHY

PHOTO: FINNISH NATIONAL OPERA AND BALLET/MIRKA KLEEMOLA

Finnish National Opera Orchestra/Ainars Rubikis, choreography: Virpi Pahkinen, dancers: Mai Komori, Pauline Simon, Cauê Frias, Pontus Sundset, Nikolas Koskivirta

Elja Puukko and Emriikka Salonen in Luther

E-ensemble/Erkki Lasonpalo, sol. Elja Puukko, Aki Alamikkotervo, Emriikka Salonen, etc.

1.6. 2017 Espoo, Finland

PHOTO: JOSEF DOUKKALI

Wondrous Eliasson

PHOTO: PIETARI PUROVAARA

CD: Tuomas Mali, piano (Pilfink Records JJVCD-166)

Lotta Wennäkoski at Royal Albert Hall

HIGHLIGHTS

3/2017

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

EINOJUHANI RAUTAVAARA

HARRI VUORI

Aikakone / Time Machine

Cantus arcticus,

A pedagogical piano collection for children.

Duet for Birds and Piano op. 61 Arr. Peter Lönnqvist Rautavaara’s concerto for birds and orchestra arranged for piano.

The birds’ singing is available on download.

Finnish Favourites for Piano 3 / Suomalaista toiveohjelmistoa pianolle 3

Part 3 in the series of Finnish piano classics contains works written mostly after the 1950’s and there are also some romantic gems and surprises.

FG 979-0-55011-354-1

FG 979-0-55011-349-7

TUOMAS TURRIAGO

FG 979-0-55011-353-4

Jitters

for piano Jitters won the second prize of the composition contest by the Tampere Piano Society and was a mandatory piece at the Tampere Piano Contest semi-finals in 2017.

JUKKA NYKÄNEN (ARR.)

Ihanuuksien ihmemaa

Beloved Finnish melodies in lovely, fresh piano arrangements.

FG 979-0-55011-352-7

FG 979-0-55011-358-9

VOCAL & CHORAL MATHIAS ALGOTSSON

ARIAS FOR YOUNG VOICES – SOPRANO

Editor: Barbro Marklund

30 arias from the Baroque to 21st century music, selected to develop young voices in ages 16-26.

Includes composer biographies, information about the works and plots etc. Lyrics in English, French, German, Italian, Latin, Swedish, Norwegian, Latvian and Czech, all with English translations and phonetics. The soprano book will be followed by similar anthologies for mezzo-soprano, tenor and bass. Published in collaboration with the Norwegian Academy of Music.

Time Is

for choir SATB Three songs with jazz influences.

Text: Henry van Dyke (Eng)

GE 13193

GE 13134

JOAKIM BERG (ARR. KJELL LÖNNÅ)

Sverige

CHAMBER & INSTRUMENTAL

for choir SSAA and piano (Sw) GE 13181

KIMMO HAKOLA

REIBJÖRN CARLSHAMRE

Creazy

Magnificat & Nunc dimittis

for clarinet in Bb A thrilling solo piece commissioned for the ECHO Young Talents program in 2016.

for choir SATB Text: from the Gospel of Luke (Eng) GE 13135

FG 979-0-55001-359-6

ULRIKA EMANUELSSON

KAI NIEMINEN

Arctic Yule/Arctic Elements

Assonata

for choir SSAA Two songs inspired by traditional Sami joik, also including fragments of Christmas songs.

Texts in Swedish and English

for clarinet and piano FG 979-0-55011-360-2

GE 13139

ESBJÖRN HAZELIUS (ARR. JENS ERIKSSON)

Lucia

for choir SATB Text: Erik Axel Karlfedt (Sw)

ANNIVERSARIES

2018-2020 2018

Tobias Broström 40 Benjamin Staern 40 Anna Cederberg Orreteg 60 Kimmo Hakola 60 Magnus Lindberg 60 Tapio Tuomela 60 Mikko Heiniö 70 Daniel Börtz 75 Paavo Heininen 80 Nils Lindberg 85 Ilkka Kuusisto 85 -----------------------------------Einojuhani Rautavaara 90th anniversary of birth Tauno Pylkkänen centenary of birth Oskar Merikanto 150th anniversary of birth Karl-Birger Blomdahl 50th anniversary of death Franz Berwald 150th anniversary of death

2019

GE 13137

JONAS NYSTRÖM (ARR.)

Stilla natt (Silent Night)/ Härlig är jorden (Fair is Creation)

SCORES

Two Christmas hymns in arrangements for choir SSAA, flute and piano (Sw)

MATS LARSSON GOTHE

The Apotheosis of the Dance

for chamber orchestra

GE 12940 (score), GE 12942 (study score)

GE 13140

MATTHEW WHITTALL

DANIEL BÖRTZ

Huron Carol for mixed choir (‘Twas the Moon of Wintertime) (arr.)

Medea (German version)

Opera in two acts Libretto: Daniel Börtz after Euripides German translation: Patrik Ringborg

An old Canadian song by Jean de Brébeuf (Eng).

FG 979-0-55011-356-5

Aattoilta

GE 13038 (vocal score)

for mixed choir Text: Ester Ahokainen (Fin)

Tiina Myllärinen 40 Tommi Kärkkäinen 50 Tommie Haglund 60 Erkki-Sven Tüür 60 Kalevi Aho 70 Harri Wessman 70 Pekka Kostiainen 75 -----------------------------------Pehr Henrik Nordgren 75th anniversary of birth Sven-Erik Bäck centenary of birth Sven-Erik Johansson centenary of birth Armas Järnefelt 150th anniversary of birth

2020

Jonas Valfridsson 40 Lotta Wennäkoski 50 Urmas Sisask 60 Pekka Jalkanen 75 Aulis Sallinen 85 -----------------------------------Lepo Sumera 70th anniversary of birth Veljo Tormis 90th anniversary of birth Bo Linde 50th anniversary of death

FG 979-0-55011-355-8

For further information about our works or representatives worldwide check our web sites or contact us at:

HIGHLIGHTS

3/2012

Gehrmans Musikförlag 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: sales@gehrmans.se

Fennica Gehrman Oy Ab 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: kvtilaus@kirjavalitys.fi (dealers)