Nordic Highlights No. 2 2025

NORDIC

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NEWSLETTER FROM GEHRMANS MUSIKFÖRLAG & FENNICA GEHRMAN

Operas on stage: Peer Gynt and The Last Temptations Focus on Karin Rehnqvist and Pasi Lyytikäinen

Albert Schnelzer’s Tales of Darkness and Sorrow will be premiered at the opening concert of the Helsingborg Piano Festival on 20 August. Magnus Larsson conducts the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra.

The work is a fairy tale suite in five tableaux focusing on the somewhat darker and more bizarre features which are also found in many well-known folk tales. The orchestral piece is moreover a homage to Ravel (on the 150th anniversary of his birth) and includes a slightly more prominent piano part.

Tiina Myllärinen

New chamber works by Tiina Myllärinen The NeoQuartet commissioned a new string quartet from Tiina Myllärinen to be premiered on 26 October at the NeoArte Synthesizer of Arts Festival in Gdansk, Poland. Her previous quartet, (Bad) Dreams come true has had several performances in Finland and was also heard at the International Festival Forum for New Music in Germany.

Myllärinen is now working on a new guitar quartet commissioned by the Hochschule für Musik Würzburg and the Kekkonen Quartet.

The first movement will be performed this year in Germany and the whole quartet is on the programme for the Summer Sounds Festival in Porvoo, Finland on 27 June 2026.

Awards for Wennäkoski and Martinaitytė The 2024 Fredrik Pacius Prize was awarded to Lotta Wennäkoski for her bold, innovative contribution to composition. Music by her was featured at the award-giving ceremony in Helsinki on 22 May. Žibuoklė Martinaitytė’s EKAGGATA for violin and chamber orchestra was chosen as one of the best pieces of 2024 by a Lithuanian composer. The Lithuanian Composers’ Union awarded the prizes in May to works selected by an expert commission. Violinist Hugo Ticciati initiated the piece and took it lovingly into the world.

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Unusual Aho concertos Kalevi Aho has completed a 33-minute piece for violin and Gagaku orchestra entitled Loihtu.

This exceptional commission included a trip to Tokyo to study the Gagaku philosophy and instruments. Loihtu was written for the violinist Sayaka Shoji and the Imperial Japanese Gagaku Orchestra of 16 musicians. There will be five performances in Japan during 2026-27 and later the orchestra will perform the piece at the Venice Biennale and the new Philharmonie de Paris.

Aho has also recently written a Concerto for Erhu and Chamber Orchestra for Kanae Nozawa, a captivating musician with her expressive erhu, the ”Chinese violin”. The world premiere by the Lapland Chamber Orchestra is scheduled in Rovaniemi for 29 November.

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Daniel Nelson festival composer Daniel Nelson has been named this year’s festival composer for the Styrsö Chamber Music Days, taking place 23-25 July. The festival program features several of his works, including The Vein Bleeds Silver for solo violin and Razed for string orchestra. This year’s spotlight soloist is soprano Sofie Asplund, who will perform Nelson’s Emily Songs – three songs on poems by Emily Dickinson – in a newly arranged version for string quartet. Also on the program are The Death & Julia, the string trio Jewish Proverbs, and Fortune Cookies Songs.

Music by Olli Kortekangas will be performed at a jubilee concert at the Helsinki Music Centre on 26 October. On the programme will be the organ sonata Stargazer , the premiere of a new organ sonata (No. 4, Snow), and the premiere of the version for large choir and organ of Vähän ennen yötä ( Just Before Night).

The performers will include Ville Rusanen, Jan Lehtola, Markku Hietaharju and the Turku Cathedral Oratorio Choir.

Also scheduled for later this year are nuKalevi Aho merous performances. The suite from the opera Isfåglarna (Halcyons) will be heard at Konnevesi in July. In November, there will be organ and vocal music by Kortekangas in a concert in Kuopio, and Kari Vuola will premiere new choral preludes in Pori. In December, the Clarinet Concerto by Kortekangas is in the concert program of the Oulu Sinfonia.

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Albert Schnelzer

Focus on Kortekangas

NEWSLE T TER FROM GEHRMANS MUSIKFÖRLAG & FENNICA GEHRMAN

Editors: Henna Salmela, Kristina Fryklöf Translations: Susan Sinisalo, Robert Carroll, Jaakko Mäntyjärvi Cover photos: Peer Gynt in Bremerhaven (Heiko Sandelmann), The Last Temptations in Tampere (Mikko Karsisto) Design: Tenhelp Oy Click the links, sound and video symbols ISSN 2000-2750 (Online)

Photo: Mats Lundqvist

Premiere for Schnelzer’s fairy tale suite

Olli Kortekangas

Photo: Maarit Kytöharju

Photo: Eeva Anundi

NEWS

Harri Viitanen

Harri Viitanen in memoriam Harri Viitanen died on 19 May at the age of 70.

For many years organist of Helsinki Cathedral, he was also an active composer and taught at the Sibelius Academy. His music, rich in ideas, was inspired in particular by astronomy and birds, and over the years, he composed a wide range of music primarily for the organ but also for ensembles. Among his best-known works are the Organ Concerto Firmamentum, and Images d’oiseau for organ based on the analysis of birdcalls.

Viitanen’s warm, bright nature will long be remembered. His music lives on: Sound of the Senate Square can be heard every day in Helsinki at 17:49. A lifelike audio work, it combines the frequencies of the church bells, the sound of a grand piano and organ, and the tinkling of a glass bird.

Martinsson’s Soundscape on CD

Minna Leinonen has composed orchestral music for the Moomin story by Tove Jansson. Guess what happens next? (Kuinkas sitten kävikään?) is a concert inspired by The Book About Moomin, Mymble and Little My. The audience at this family concert is immersed in the story by the music, narrator and pictures projected onto the back of the stage. The work was premiered by the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra in March 2025, and it is also in the pipeline for Pori and Kuopio. The concerts are part of the Moomin 80 anniversary and will be held in collaboration with the Moomin Museum and Moomin Characters. This dramatized musical fairytale will take the audience on an exciting adventure suitable for ages 5 upwards.

Rolf Martinsson’s horn concerto Soundscape – A Walk in Colours has now been released on CD by Berlin Classics on the album “Northern Colours”.

The concerto is dedicated to the phenomenal hornist Felix Klieser, here playing together with the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie. The work was commissioned jointly by Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi and the Norrlandsoperan Symphony Orchestra. The new album was chosen “The Best Classic Album of the Month”

by Sweden’s biggest daily newspaper, Dagens Nyheter, in April. (Read more under reviews).

Photo: Kike Barona

Photo: Samuli Viitanen

Marie Samuelsson’s Movements of Seashells and Plastic for clarinet, violin, percussion and piano was composed during her residence with the Polish contemporary ensemble Kwartludium. The piece consists of concrete sounds from nature that have been given musical form through sonorous combinations and transformations with acoustic instruments. “The sound of plastic is a sad new feature in the oceans”, says Samuelsson. The ensemble premiered the work at the Svensk Musikvår festival in Stockholm in March. It was subsequently performed at the Beijing Modern Music Festival in China on 17 May and will be presented again in October at the Arena Festival in Riga, Latvia.

Minna Leinonen & Moomins

© Moomin Characters ™

Marie Samuelsson

Photo: Mats Bäcker

New chamber work by Samuelsson

Jörgen Dafgård news In early May Jörgen Dafgård spent a week together with Orquesta Filarmónica de Bogotá in Columbia to record a portrait album with five of his orchestral works: Veils, Through Fire and Water, Mosaïque vibrante, Abrasax – Concerto for soprano saxophone and Tableau vivant for violin and orchestra.

The recording featured Anders Paulsson, soprano saxophone, and Luis Martín Niño, violin, under the direction of conductor Joachim Gustafsson. It will be released on Footprint Records. Dafgård has just finished composing a cello concerto for Amalie Stalheim, due to be premiered by the Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra on 15 January 2026.

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Jörgen Dafgård

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Seven questions for Karin Rehnqvist Karin Rehnqvist has had an eventful spring including the album release and performances of her prize awarded ‘Silent Earth’ and a world premiere in Helsinki. At present she is working on a dream project, an opera for children with intellectual disabilities.

1. Your most recent work, Take the Milky Way, was given its premiere in Helsinki on 26 April.

Could you tell us something about it?

Photo: Filip Erlind

Take the Milky Way is written for mixed choir and baroque orchestra, a very exciting combination of instruments to write new music for. It depicts in text and music how we humans are suspended in space, where invisible threads bind us together. The piece consists of four movements and is quite varied; at times very rhythmical. At

the end one extremely high and one extremely low tone are sustained, while the choir moves in-between them and sings about how we continue our journey together into the unknown.

The Helsinki Chamber Choir and Nils Schweckendiek premiered the work. They celebrated their 20th anniversary and had commissioned four new pieces (!).

2. Your acclaimed “climate oratorio” Silent Earth was performed just a few weeks later by the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and its choirs, conducted by Eva Ollikainen. The work was awarded the Nordic Council Music Prize in 2022 and was released on an album in February. As in Take the Milky Way, you collaborated with author Kerstin Perski, who once again takes us into outer space. Do you see any similarities between the two works?

Yes, there is a musical and a textual kinship.

Both pieces are very topical, they are about humanity’s vulnerability in our time. But whilst Silent Earth is definitely serious and dark, Take the Milky Way rather instils hope. It is an exhortation, one could say, to do the impossible. “… Reach out your hand/pull the fallen/free the light/from the dark hole…”

A kind of fight song, if you prefer.

3.

Over the last year Gehrmans has also published a number of your earlier works. One of these is Hymn for choir and orchestra, scheduled to have its UK premiere at the Aldeburgh Festival on 17 June. It was originally written for the wedding of the Swedish Crown Princess Victoria and Daniel Westling in 2010. How did you go about composing for this very special occasion?

In order to get ideas, I imagined myself as a princess in a pink tulle skirt. The piece is lively and sonorous. There is no sadness, just pure joy.

4.

Your orchestral work Arktis!

Arktis! is something entirely different, depicting the harsh Arctic landscape.

Could you say something about the background?

In 1999 I had the opportunity to participate in a Polar research expedition up in northern Canada.

The icebreaker was crowded with researchers, and we were flown out to the tundra to gather material and

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various kinds of data. The experience was overwhelming. When I returned home, I wrote this piece – jointly commissioned by the Swedish and the Scottish Chamber Orchestras – and it has since become my most performed orchestral piece.

5. At present you are working on an opera, created especially for children and young people with intellectual disabilities, but which is also suitable for everyone from the age of 6.

The work is due to be premiered in February of next year. What is this opera about?

The title of the opera is The Journey to Arareko, and it is scored for three singers and four instrumentalists. The story is based on a children’s book about how a lizard and a boy together manage to find water in the Sonora Desert. Mercedes Gómez, a harpist and author from Mexico, has written the libretto; Lisbeth Hagerman, who works a great deal with dramatic art for children with varying disabilities, does the directing. When it comes to writing for children who perhaps don’t even have a language, there can’t be too much text.

Repetition is crucial. But it can be sad, joyous, and even a little crazy.

The producer is Musik i Syd. A more extensive version for 10-12 musicians is also planned.

6. You have worked extensively with music for children and young people. What is important when writing for children, and are there any special challenges?

It is vital to know which children you are writing for, so that it is on the right level when it comes to both degree of musical difficulty and content.

You need to rely on your inner child and even get help from the children. They are full of creativity. On one occasion when I was writing music for children’s choir, I asked them for help with finishing the sentence: “I get so angry when …”

Then I got answers like: “I get so angry when my screen time is up”. I would never have hit on this myself.

7. What do you have in the pipeline – is there a dream project?

Right now, I’m fully occupied with the children’s opera – it’s so incredibly inspiring! At the moment, it truly feels likes my dream project.

Kristina Fryklöf Footnote More works by Karin Rehnqvist to be published include: Ljus av ljus (Light of Light) for children’s choir and orchestra (2003) Day is here! for eight voices and strings (2018) …and so the day ends for saxophone quartet (2024) Listen to Karin Rehnqvist's works!

R E PER TO I RE TIPS TIMO ALAKOTILA Hope 2021 (2021) Dur: 5’ for string quintet and piano

Hope 2021 was commissioned by Kaustinen Chamber Music Week. The topic invokes a hope for a brighter future (the piece was written during the pandemic). The middle section, a wistful minuet with features of folk music, is sandwiched between a bright opening and closing melody.

DANIEL NELSON

Music reflecting peace, light, hope and freedom VELJO TORMIS Varjele, Jumala, soasta (God, Protect Us from War, 1984) Dur: 6’ for male choir and tam-tam Text: Kanteletar (Fin, Lat)

TAPIO TUOMELA

for soprano, mixed choir & orch: 2222-4231-111-pf/cel-str Text: Charlie Chaplin (Eng)

Pace (Peace, 2025) Dur: 8’

Nelson has transformed Chaplin’s iconic final speech from the movie “The Great Dictator” into a monumental work that pays homage to peace, freedom and democracy. The music is impassioned and fluctuates effortlessly between the rhythmically forceful and delicate moments and melancholy contemplation. At its heart the soprano soloist embodies the light with a recurring, shimmering, clear melody that concludes the work with the words “We are coming out of the darkness”.

Pace is a plea for peace. It was inspired by Gesualdo’s madrigal Moro, lasso. The listener is left in no doubt of its topical message, since the brief text is also recited in the middle of the piece in the local language of the performance. There are chromatic, increasingly rhythmic crescendos, and the music is coloured throughout by melodic, sighing vocalises and repeated utterances of the words “la pace”.

ANDERS PAULSSON

LOTTA WENNÄKOSKI

This joyful suite in five movements was written on commission for the 20th anniversary of South Africa as a democracy and contains musical elements from South African songs of freedom, folk music, jazz and art music in the Western tradition. “The power of the music functions as a harmonising link between cultures – a connection that words alone cannot create”, says Paulsson.

EINOJUHANI RAUTAVAARA Angel of Light (Symphony No. 7) (1994) Dur: 38’ 2222-4331-12-hp-str

Rautavaara’s Grammy-nominated and Cannes Classical Award-winning Angel of Light is the culmination of all his stylistic syntheses. A breakthrough work, it brought him international fame. The landscape of this compelling, mystical piece is painted with broad strokes. There are sweeping gestures, and the final movement is almost cinematic. Powerful, richly allusive but eminently approachable music.

KARIN REHNQVIST When I Close My Eyes, I Dream of Peace (2016) Dur: 10’ for mixed choir Rehnqvist has called this work a peace project and the text consists of one single sentence, spoken by an eleven-year-old Croatian boy during the Balkan War: “When I close my eyes, I dream of peace”. In the first part the English text is mixed with onomatopoetic syllables in a folklike tune. In the second part the choir is divided into six groups that sing the sentence in 12 different languages where each has its own melody inspired by the musical tradition of the respective culture. There is also a shorter version of the piece consisting of only part 2 with an introduction.

MARIE SAMUELSSON The Eros Effect and Solidarity – Love Trilogy No. 3 (2016) Dur: 12’ 2222-2200-01-0-str

Samuelsson draws inspiration from George Katsiaficas’ concept of ‘The Eros Effect’, which explores how people can create freedom through solidarity, peace movements and love. The musicians take on dual roles, as the music is interlaced with recitations and whispering, with the introductory words: “Humans have an internal need for freedom.” The music is tranquil and searching, with long drawn-out sonorities and fragmentary solos. This finely-tuned atmosphere permeates the entire work, including the exquisite sections with strings and winds.

KALEVI AHO

String Quartets 1-3 Stenhammar Quartet BIS Records 2609

This impressive, ritualistic piece is an expression of primeval fear of war and a prayer to God. The hypnotic rhythm is interrupted towards the end as the male voices swell into a powerful cry for peace, described in Classics Today as “the most terrifying tamtam crescendo ever recorded.” The ending is simply hair-raising.

Chaplin Songs (2020) Dur: 41’

Celebration Suite (2013) Dur: 22’ 2111-ssax-2asax-2tsax-bsax-0221-05-1(opt.)str-ebass

NE W ALBUM S

for mixed choir Text: Joh. 14:27 (Ita)

ALEX FREEMAN

Northern April Somnium Ensemble/ Elisa Huovinen) SE03 (‘Mirabilia’)

OLLI KORTEKANGAS

Works for organ Jan Lehtola

PilfinkRecordsJJVCD-267(’Grace ’)

valo joka (the light, which, 2016) Dur: 7’ for soprano and violin Text: Saila Susiluoto (Fin) “Dusk…you are but hope between darkness and light.” Thus begins this piece by Lotta Wennäkoski closely ruled by the poem overlapping and influencing its composition. It is a virtuosic duet in which the the soprano shines interpreting the capricious music and the message of the intense text.

MATTHEW WHITTALL The Return of Light (2015) Dur: 25’

ROLF MARTINSSON

Soundscape – A Walk in Colours Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern/ Jamie Phillips, sol. Felix Klieser, hn Berlin Classics 0303248BC (‘Northern Colours’)

for mixed choir & orch: 2222-2200-01-pf-str Text: wordless

A glittering work sparked off by an account by an Arctic explorer when he saw the sun rise after the long winter darkness. According to the enthusiastic critics, the soundscape conjured forth by Whittall is fascinating, and the way conventional music-making is gradually approached and the sun at last shines forth is magical.

KARIN REHNQVIST

Silent Earth Swedish Radio SO and Choir/ Dima Slobodeniouk Footprint Records FR142

In the New Light of Spring (Oboe Concerto, 2024) Dur: 21’ for oboe and strings

Whittall’s ability to convey impressive images is witnessed here. The work opens with gentle string harmonics, like sunlight filtered through moving clouds. The oboe steps in and the music becomes darker. The dichotomy between light and shadow animates the rest of the piece and the quality of light is forever changing.

JAN YNGWE In State of Emergency (2019) Dur: 6’

SVENDAVID SANDSTRÖM

Sonnets of Darkness and Love Swedish Radio Choir/ Kaspars Putnins, sol. Nils Landgren, vocals and trombone ACT 8005

for mixed choir and two percussionists Text: Ketty Ninyabandi (Eng)

A powerful work to a hopeful text by the Burundi poet and human rights activist Ketty Ninyabandi. The music strikingly combines choruses and percussion, and comprises solo parts as well, which creates a dramatic and a highly emotional experience. It starts out as a call for help but ends in brightness with the words “we exhale hope”.

No More War! (2022) Dur: 3’ for mixed choir Text: Asif Andalib (Eng)

An impactful and expressive piece, composed as a direct response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The music opens dramatically, with growing intensity in both dynamics and voice leading, as the voices gradually become more numerous, stronger, and increasingly agitated. The piece culminates in a tender, ascending chorale with the words “Learn to Love Please” – a heartfelt plea for peace and human understanding.

JEAN SIBELIUS, ILMARI HANNIKAINEN, HELVI LEIVISKÄ

Piano works Terhi Dostal, piano

Alba ABCD 514 (‘Finnish Impressions’)

BENJAMIN STAERN

The Threat of War, Worried Souls – Clarinet Concerto, Polar Vortex – Symphony No. 1 Gävle SO/Emil Eliasson, sol. Karin Dornbusch Swedish Society SCD1190 (‘Worried Souls’)

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Focus on Pasi Lyytikäinen

P

asi Lyytikäinen began his musical career as a child, playing the accordion on a train. He took up the flute at the Military Music School in Lahti, where he envisioned a career as a military band conductor. He developed an interest in music theory and composition through score study and began to experiment with compositions of his own. At the age of 20, Lyytikäinen was accepted to study composition at the Sibelius Academy, where his teachers included Paavo Heininen and Erkki Jokinen. He also attended masterclasses given by Esa-Pekka Salonen, Magnus Lindberg, Michael Jarrell, Marco Stroppa and others. In 2002, he entered a piano duet composition competition with Par, which won a prize. This, along with his final project at the Sibelius Academy – a comic opera titled Helsinkiin (To Helsinki) based on the eponymous novel by Juhani Aho – launched his career as a professional composer.

Exploring further afield

performances titled Oopperaa arjessa (Opera in everyday life), a concertante work for accordion and mixed choir titled Mitä meille (What for us), La spada del sole for string quartet, a song cycle titled Lauluja – Sånger for soprano and piano and the cabaret-style monologue opera Der Unveröffentlichte Film der Eva Braun (The for soprano unpublished tape of Eva Braun) and chamber orchestra to a libretto by Maritza Núñez premiered in 2021.

All branches of the arts Lyytikäinen’s catalogue spans a wide range of ensembles and genres: he has written orchestral, chamber, solo, vocal and stage works. Vocal music and music for the stage form an important part of his work. His interest in vocal music – along with a love of karaoke – originally emerged due to the influence of his teacher Paavo Heininen. In vocal music, Lyytikäinen is particularly interested in text, which he considers a component of musical narrative that reaches beyond the music itself yet forms an essential part of the whole. His stage works go even beyond music and text into other branches of the arts. He also writes poetry and columns himself and at one point was a music journalist. He also considers drawing an important mode of expression, seeing both writing and drawing as complementing his toolkit as a composer.

Pasi Lyytikäinen notes that his musical roots are in the tradition of modernism where texture is an important element, but the musical appearance of his works varies from almost tonal to dissonant sounds and noise. His way of composing is highly pragmatic, and he often writes for a specific musician, singer or ensemble. Stylistic pluralism emerged as a feature in his work in the 2010s, sometimes blending various styles within a single work, as in the Eva Braun opera or the

Ever since his studies, Lyytikäinen has been an active and inclusive player in the field of contemporary art music, specifically in bringing performances out of concert halls and major cities.

He has strong ties with his native region, North Savo in eastern Finland: he was the composer-in-residence of the municipality of Lapinlahti in 2000–2001 and established a contemporary music festival named Pasimusic in North Savo, being its artistic director from 2014 to 2018.

He has also been a teacher at the Kuopio outpost of the Sibelius Academy, and the Kuopio Symphony Orchestra commissioned and Reetta Ristimäki in premiered his First Symphony (2008). His the Eva Braun opera recent Piano Concerto, written for Risto-Matti Marin, is to be premiered in Kuopio in autumn 2025.

Lyytikäinen explains that he developed an identifiable personal style in his early works but later felt the need to explore further afield. This stylistic expansion formed part of the motivation for him to undertake an artistically oriented doctorate at the Sibelius Academy, now part of the University of the Arts Helsinki. His doctorate, completed in 2025, discusses the regulating of the tension between noise and pitch, particularly in music for the stage. The extensive portfolio of compositions included in his doctorate includes the trilogy of experimental opera

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Piano Concerto. Other works may be stylistically coherent in themselves but differ substantially from each other even if written concurrently.

Lyytikäinen considers playing and games to be an essential tool for composition. He often proceeds from tiny musical ideas and germs through playing around with them to shape them into material usable for the project at hand. He identifies with the notion put forth by author Günter Grass of a musical idea being an onion that can be peeled layer by layer to get closer to its core.

Lyytikäinen is a social personality who balances the lonely work of a composer with teaching and likes to collaborate particularly with musicians performing his works. He finds a welcome sense of community in actively participating in civic organisations and in singing in a choir. He has collaborated with professional orchestras in Finland and with the New European Ensemble, the Zagros Ensemble and the Uuden Ajan Ensemble, and apart from Risto-Matti Marin with artists such as Joseph Tong, Mika Väyrynen, Veli Kujala, Eero Saunamäki, Sergei Tchirkov and Mirka Viitala.

His music has been performed at several international festivals. A concert of his music is to be presented by a long-standing partner ensemble of his, the Seinäjoki City Orchestra.

Works of particular importance for Lyytikäinen himself include the choral work Tässä on lohtu (Here is Comfort) to a text by Henriikka Tavi (2023) and Taival (Trek) for instrument ensemble, commissioned by the Tampere Biennale (2018). Both are based on a sonority that is at once rewarding and challenging for the performers and aesthetically appealing in its appearance.

Photo: Markku Pihlaja

Lyytikäinen (b. 1975) is an active and inclusive player in the field of contemporary art music, whose works span a wide range of ideas, ensembles and genres.

Hanna Isolammi

REVIEWS Photo: Mikko Karsisto

Impressive music by Freeman Alex Freeman’s Northern April to words by Edna St. Vincent Millays possessed an outstanding potency as the voices soared into the spheres and the flow grew increasingly dynamic.

Hufvudstadsbladet 5.3.

Photo Henna Salmela

Alex Freeman: Northern April for mixed choir Somnium Ensemble/Elisa Huovinen, 6.3. 2025 Helsinki, Finland Olli Koskelin

Unbelievably dramatic soundfest

A magnificent portrait album with rumblings of war, extreme weather and a clarinet concerto.

Dagens Nyheter 18.4.

Such wealth of invention!... Karin Dornbusch is a brilliant soloist… The music grows the whole time the more you listen to it… A fantastic album and the Gävle Symphony Orchestra and conductor Emil Eliasson do an incredibly fine job. Musikrevyn/Swedish Radio P2 28.4.

Benjamin Staern: Threat of War, Worried Souls, Symphony No. 1 – Polar Vortex CD: Gävle SO/Emil Eliasson, sol. Karin Dornbusch, cl. (Swedish Society SCD 1190, ‘Worried Souls’)

Critical acclaim for Peer Gynt opera Wisdom in both the libretto and its musical setting... Reinvere’s Peer Gynt is a deliberate cry against the ills of our time, against lies, weariness and boredom, ultimately culminating in the tears of resolution. Opernwelt May 2025 A thoughtful and witty production, imaginatively designed and meticulously conducted – a remarkable feast, accomplished by the ensemble of an enthusiastic theatre. Frankfurter Allgemeine 10.5.

Reinvere’s musical language is determined by a deep knowledge of traditions and a perspective reference to the issues of our time...The committed humanist makes strong thematic and musical statements with his compositions.

His own libretto is convincing.

Klassik.com 3.5.

Jüri Reinvere: Peer Gynt World premiere (German version): Stadttheater Bremerhaven/Marc Niemann, dir. Johannes Pölzgutter, dram.

Markus Tatzig, sol. Michael Müller-Kasztelan, Victoria Kunze etc, 3.-29.5.2025 Bremerhaven, Germany

Koskelin symphony a bullseye The Yle-commissioned symphony by Olli Koskelin was a veritable bullseye. The First symphony in 11 movements now premiered reflects a flowing world in which, says Koskelin, shoals of fish and other watery inhabitants occupy the leading roles. What a pleasure it is to hear a composer who knows how to write weighty symphonic music for orchestra. Helsingin Sanomat 13.2.

Olli Koskelin: First Symphony in 11 movements World premiere: Finnish RSO/Nathanaёl Iselin, 12.2.2025 Helsinki, Finland (Musica nova) Photo: minnamurra.fi

Joonas Kokkonen: Viimeiset kiusaukset (The Last Temptations) Tampere Opera/Ville Matvejeff, dir. Mikko Kouki, sol. Mika Kares, Silja Aalto etc, 5.-15.3.2025 Tampere, Finland

Magnificent Staern album

Photo: Heiko Sandelmann

It is surely not very common to go home from an opera composed in the latter half of the 20th century humming a catchy melody? It was a flash of genius on Kokkonen’s part to construct an opera based on old chorale themes around a nuclear motif constantly shifting à la Sibelius and building up to an unbelievably dramatic soundfest in the finale. …Some of the most dramatic moments are expressed in dense, fierce orchestration, those Camilla Tilling of calm and happiness in a major-key-like sunny, triad-oriented milieu. The music is a thrilling mix of new and traditional, fresh and familiar. In other words, a classic. Aamulehti 6.3.

Tami Pohjola

Masterly orchestration Kalevi Aho’s Violin Concerto No. 2 is one of the best of its kind in Finland… traditional in the positive sense… The violin of the soloist, Tami Pohjola, shone with a clear, glossy glow and with fiery bravura in the finale. Helsingin Sanomat 7.4.

Kalevi Aho: Violin Concerto No. 2 Lahti SO/Osmo Vänskä, sol. Tami Pohjola, 4.4.2025 Lahti, Finland

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Larsson Gothe’s dreamy Cello Concerto

PREMIERES Torleif Thedéen

It is a composition that frees itself from format norms such as excellence and feats of strength and rather becomes a psychological portrait with poetic intensity. Thedéen is impressive in tone and presence, and the solo part’s interpretation feels, more than anything else, deeply personal.

Photo: Nadja Sjöström

REVIEWS

June–September PASI LYYTIKÄINEN

Tässä on lohtu Värinä Chamber Choir/Noora Hirn 4.6. Helsinki, Finland

AULIS SALLINEN

Shaka – Melodrama for reciter and ensemble Festival ensemble/Jan Söderblom, recit. Matti Leino 5.6. Naantali, Finland (Naantali Music Festival)

PER GUNNAR PETERSSON

Svenska Dagbladet 11.4.

Grant Us Peace Female Voices of the Lund University Choir/Cecilia Martin-Löf 7.6. Marktoberdorf, Germany (International Choral Competition)

It was the cello concerto that triggered my imagination. Mats Larsson Gothe has created 20 dreamy minutes for and with Torleif Thedéen’s cello. It plays a high, shimmering A and lights up the orchestra to an enchanted glitter… It alternates between dreamlike sweetness and furious aggression that at last finds its high A again – but ends in the middle of a gesture, in the middle of a sentence … Dagens Nyheter 11.4.

JOHAN ULLÉN

One Last Tango (Apocalypse) BBC Concert Orchestra/Anna-Maria Helsing 12.6. London, UK

KALEVI AHO

String Quartet No. 5 Kamus Quartet 12.6. Helsinki, Finland (Lauttasaari Music Festival)

BENJAMIN STAERN

Mats Larsson Gothe: Cello Concerto World premiere: Royal Stockholm PO/Johannes Gustavsson, soloist Torleif Thedéen, 10.5.2025 Stockholm, Sweden

Two Grumpy Old Men Håkan Hardenberger, tpt, Stefan Dohr, hn 18.6. Sandefjord, Norway (Fjord Classics Festival)

Dramatic and beautiful Chaplin Songs

LARA POE

Petite suite d’apres Couperin(s) Finnish Baroque Orchestra 13.7. Kemiönsaari, Finland (Kimito Island Music Festival)

Nelson has created an evocative and dramatic work, in which a recurrent, swaying rhythm, accentuated with tubular bells and basses, reinforces the seriousness of the text with uncompromising power. It is beautiful, grandiose and full of attractive sonorities and melodies… Choral sections contrast with solo sections, where Camilla Tilling’s rich and expressive voice blazes like an undying flame in the darkness. Gefle Dagblad 12.4.

OLLI KORTEKANGAS

Alkyone (Suite from the opera Halcyons) Helsinki CO/Henriikka Teerikangas, sol. Minna-Leena Lahti 20.7. Konnevesi, Finland

Daniel Nelson: Chaplin Songs Gävle SO/Christian Reiff, 11.4.2025 Gävle, Sweden

ALBERT SCHNELZER

Tales of Darkness and Sorrow Helsingborg SO/Magnus Larsson 20.8. Helsingborg, Sweden (Helsingborg International Piano Festival)

Imaginative Karin Rehnqvist Rehnqvist’s Take the Milky Way received the most enthusiastic response from the large audience. It was also the most imaginative piece of the evening. The Swedish poet Kerstin Perski’s fragmentary linguistic imagery leaves much room for the music. The melodies floated weightlessly, sometimes even anxiously, in the midst of empty space—echoes of the cosmos.

DANIEL BÖRTZ

Concerto Grosso Change Music Ensemble/Simon Crawford Phillips 22.8. Kungsbacka, Sweden (Change Music Festival)

Helsingin Sanomat 28.4.

Take the Milky Way gave the impression of a highly developed sensitivity to the choral idiom and its possibilities, and the delicious organ effects fit nicely within the context.

The Rave Chronicles

Hufvudstadsbladet 28.4.

Karin Rehnqvist: Take the Milky Way World premiere: Helsinki Chamber Choir, Finnish Baroque Orchestra/Nils Schweckendiek, 26.4.2025 Helsinki, Finland

Violinist Ilya Gringolts crowned the season with fascinating midnight tales. The first movement floats at the thresholds of consciousness, where the violin’s delicate melody is joined by shimmering tones that seem to arise directly from the air…

The second is driven forward by a colorful dotted rhythm, with a melody that shifts between romanticism, oriental hints, and dangerous heat…The third movement’s encounter between violin, gong, and vibraphone conjures visions of strange crea- Reiff, Schnelzer & Gringolts tures moving with enigmatic majesty… The final movement’s impulse to flee is propelled by pounding pulses and brass players who catch the melody mid-flight and lift it like a sail.

Gefle Dagblad 23.5.

Albert Schnelzer: Violin Concerto No. 2 – Nocturnal Songs Gävle SO/Christian Reiff, sol. Ilya Gringolts, 23.5.2025 Gävle, Sweden

8

HIGHLIGHTS

2/2025

Photo Gävle Symphony Orchestra

Fascinating midnight tales

In the Rave Chronicles the sound-picture is transformed into an anguished machinery that keeps ticking mercilessly. It is fateful; descending scales, metallic clicking, tempi that seem to be in a hurry to overlap one another… the work itself will remain etched in one’s memory.

Västerbottenskuriren 27.4.

Daniel Nelson: The Rave Chronicles World premiere: Norrlandsoperan SO/Patrik Ringborg, sol. Yamaha Disklavier, 25.4.2025 Umeå, Sweden

Martinsson’s elegant and colourful Soundscape His craft of composition is a God-given talent… cinematic… brilliantly orchestrated. This is some of the most gripping music by Martinsson that I have heard.

Musikrevyn/Swedish Radio P2 18.5

Rolf Martinsson: Soundscape – A Walk in Colours CD: Deutsche Radio Philharmonie/Jamie Phillips, sol. Felix Klieser, hn (Berlin Classics 0303248BC, ‘Northern Colours’)

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

CHAMBER & INSTRUMENTAL

SELMA EHLDE

KALEVI AHO

Då skall stenarna blomma for male choir Text: Gunnar Ekelöf (Sw) Winner of the choir Lunds Studentsångare’s and Gehrmans’ composition competition ’Vårsång/ Spring song’.

String Quartet No. 2

FG 9790550119802 (score & parts)

String Quartet No. 3

FG 979055011981 (score & parts)

TOMAS LINDAHL

GE 14918

Fabula for soprano saxophone (or instrument in C) and guitar

ALVIN VIKMAN

Lost Hope for mixed choir Text: Nakahara Chūya, (transl. Paul Mackintosh/Mak Sugiyama, Eng)

dig 12305

JYRKI LINJAMA

GE 14749

Mats Larsson Gothe

Prélude oublié for piano

FG 9790550119680

LOTTA WENNÄKOSKI

valo joka (the light, which) for soprano and violin Text: Saila Susiluoto (Fin)

Symphony No. 4 for orchestra

FG 9790550119857

SCORE

ROLF MARTINSSON

Tidig gryning (Early Dawn) for soprano, cello and piano Text: Edith Södergran (Swe) GE 14767 (score &parts)

Twilight for horn or violin and piano

ORCHESTRA

GE 14643 (score & parts)

MATS LARSSON GOTHE

PERGUNNAR PETERSSON ED.

Symphony No. 4

Lux rustica A collection including 32 Swedish folk tunes arranged or transcribed for organ.

GE 14515 (score), GE 14517 (study score)

GE 14804

PEKKA JALKANEN

Viron orja (The Serf of Viro) for two violins and string orchestra

PER GUNNAR PETERSSON

Peace in our Time for organ

FG 9790550119833 (score & parts)

GE 14856

Saliga visshet for organ

JACOB MÜHLRAD

Resil I for chamber orchestra

GE 14665

GE 14751 (score), GE 14753 (study score)

NOA EDWARDSSON

for orchestra

GE 14755 (score), GE 14757 (study score) Robert Schumann Albert Schnelzer

Orchestration: Rolf Martinsson

ALBERT SCHNELZER

Aksak & Ciphers for string orchestra

GE 14487 (score), GE 14489 (study score)

Kinderszenen Aksak and Ciphers for chamber orchestra

Op. 15 for chamber orchestra

for chamber orchestra

GE 14490 (score), GE 14492 (study score)

Elegi for organ GE 14921

ESA PIETILÄ

Blazing Flames for tenor saxophone and string quartet FG 9790550119796 (score & parts)

SCORE

SCORE

KARIN REHNQVIST

Ljusets hjärta (Heart of Lights) for solo violin Based on the choral work Do Not Fear the Darkness.

ROBERT SCHUMANN/ ROLF MARTINSSON ORCH.

Kinderszenen for chamber orchestra

GE 14588 (score), GE 14590 (study score)

dig 12300 Nathan Söderblom arr. Andreas Wetterlund

NATHAN SÖDERBLOM/ ANDREAS WETTERLUND ARR.

I denna ljuva sommartid (Geh aus, mein Herz, und suche Freud/Go Forth My Heart and Seek Delight) for orchestra Arranged as a celebration to conductor Herbert Blomstedt on his 97th birthday.

GE 14910 (score)

I denna ljuva sommartid Geh aus, mein Herz, und suche Freud

ALBERT SCHNELZER

Aksak & Ciphers for string sextet

GE 14485 (score) GE 14486 (parts)

Go forth, my heart, and seek delight for orchestra

SCORE

ERKKISVEN TÜÜR

String Quartet In memoriam Urmas Kibuspuu. New, revised edition.

FG 9790550119789 (score & parts)

HARRI WESSMAN

JENNAH VAINIO

Nerve-Wreck Blues Overture for strings

Ellen’s Viola Album Nine easy pieces for viola and piano FG 9790550119864

FG 9790550119826 (score & parts 33221)

Körglädje (Choral Joy)

for mixed choir An anthology including 20 Swedish songs in various genres and from different time periods. Published in collaboration with Sveriges Körförbund/The Swedish Choral Association, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary.

GE 14815

For further information contact us at:

Gehrmans Musikförlag AB

Box 42026, SE-126 12 Stockholm, Sweden Tel. +46 8 610 06 00 info@gehrmans.se Web shop: www.gehrmans.se Hire: hire@gehrmans.se Sales: order@gehrmans.se

Several publications by Fennica Gehrman Oy Ab Fennica Gehrman Fredrikinkatu 61 A 22, FI-00100 Helsinki, Finland are also available Tel. +358 10 3871 220 as PDF editions info@fennicagehrman.fi or eBooks in our Web shop: www.fennicagehrman.fi web shop.

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