The latest Europadisc Review (https://www.europadisc.co.uk/classical/245683/Pictures_from_Finland.htm?utm_source=Europadisc+Classical+Mailing+List&utm_campaign=0fbddbb237-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_11_23_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_250d0548b0-0fbddbb237-411849053):
Pictures from Finland
Kajanus, Madetoja, Palmgren, Raitio, Sibelius
Oulu Sinfonietta, Rumon Gamba
Musical nationalism was a relative latecomer to Finland: it was not until the 1880s that the aspirations of the then Russian Grand Duchy began to be taken up as a cause by its composers. Although today Sibelius is by far the best known figure from this movement, the father of the Finnish school was Robert Kajanus (now remembered mostly as a pioneering champion of Sibelius). Born in December 1856, he was nine years Sibelius's senior, and a significant composer in his own right, even if he didn't achieve the visionary stylistic individuality of his younger colleague. It's appropriate, then, that two of Kajanus's compositions should be included in a new album from conductor Rumon Gamba and the Oulu Sinfonia, 'Pictures from Finland', a follow-up to their highly successful 2023 disc 'Overtures from Finland'.
Kajanus's Finnish Rhapsody no.2 of 1886 dates from just four years after the Helsinki Orchestral Society (later the Helsinki Philharmonic) gave its inaugural concert under his baton. Stylistically it is closest to the music of two Norwegian composers, Edvard Grieg and Johan Svendsen, but although rooted firmly in the 19th-century Romantic mainstream, its high-minded opening and deciso main theme lend it a palpable nobility which is effectively contrasted with livelier passages. By 1913, just four years before Finland gained its official independence from Russia, the mood was very different, and Kajanus's Adagietto for strings has a prayerful restraint which is only heightened by its building to two ardent climaxes, suggestive of burgeoning passions before ebbing away to soulful introspection.
The rest of the programme covers a good half-century of Finnish musical invention from Kajanus's 1886 Rhapsody onwards. The disc opens with two four-movement suites. Selim Palmgren's 1904 Pictures from Finland, which gives the album its title, is a picture of the four seasons, opening with an expansive nature-picture ('Dreams in Spring'), and closing with a colourful 'Sleigh Ride', orchestrated with great flair. It's hard to detect anything specifically summery in the neo-Baroque 'Minuet in Folk Style', but the 'Dance of the Falling Leaves' opens with exquisitely-voiced high-string chords which suggest the intense sunlit brilliance of the Finnish forests in a manner not dissimilar to Sibelius; the more troubled woodwind of the second episode have an ominous undertow which is similarly Sibelian.
It's the third movement ('Legend'), too, of Leevi Madetoja's 1933 Suite pastorale that makes the most lasting impression, especially its delicate string scoring and telling harmonic transitions; a nostalgia-tinted, horn-led middle section is more restless and (thanks to an insistent oboe figure) plaintive. The opening movement ('Morning') also seems to invoke nature, while the lighthearted 'Caprice' (with a stern central interruption which introduces a note of darkness) is brilliantly played by the Oulu players (Madetoja himself hailed from this northwestern city). The concluding Waltz is lent a sardonic edge, not least by the robust opening brass motif; sophisticatedly poised, and with a certain French levity, it feels more cosmopolitan than pastoral.
The youngest composer here is the little-known Väinö Raitio (1891–1945), like Palmgren and Madetoja a member of the 'second generation' of Finnish composers. His 1938 Idyll is another of those slow-burners which seem to be a distinguishing national characteristic, and contains some beautifully telling woodwind writing. Quite different, however, is the spikily jocular tribute to the domestic cat, the Scherzo 'Felis domestica' of 1935. Castanets and other percussion hint, perhaps, at more southern climes: is the animal in question perhaps a street cat, or merely a household pet with a mischievous side? In any event, this makes for a delightful light-hearted interlude, revealing a composer of lively wit and considerable skill as an orchestrator.
More easily identifiable are the creatures in the single Sibelius included on the album: the Scene with Cranes of 1906, derived from two numbers in his music for Arvid Järnefelt's play Kuolema ('Death'). Gamba and his players perfectly capture that fragile, evocative stillness that is such a unique Sibelian hallmark, and the insistent calls of the cranes supplied by the clarinets in the central episode are given a haunting edge by players who are surely familiar with the natural phenomenon on which they are based. More than a mere nature picture, however, this music reaches deep into Finland's mythic soul.
The album closes with Madetoja's Finnish-language setting of the Stabat Mater, for which the orchestra is joined by the Madetoja Music High School's Girls' Choir and the women's voices of the Oulu-based Soma Ensemble. Scored for strings and female chorus, it opens with that sunlit intensity which is another Finnish trait, here evoking the piercing sorrow of Mary standing before the Cross. Soon this mood gives way to the steady tread of Baroque counterpoint, before building to a rapt and singularly moving conclusion. It's almost worth the price of the album for this rarity alone, and with few if any currently available recordings of most of the pieces here, this is another most welcome disc from Gamba and his Oulu forces, performed with great commitment and finesse, and matched by first-class recording and presentation. Lovers of Nordic music need not hesitate!