Children's Symphony

[semloh]

I have an MP3 - source unknown - labelled "KLAM - Children's Symphony, FinnishRSO, cond. Pekkanen", but I can't find any reference to Klam in books or on the web. In case it was a spelling mistake, I checked Uuno Klami's website and also the FRSO website - no luck. I will try to upload the piece if I can (never uploaded before!). It lasts about 15 minutes and is in a lush neo-romantic style. If anyone can shed light on the piece I would be grateful.

[Alan Howe]

Wikipedia's page on Klami...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uuno_Klami
...contains a reference to a 'Symphonie enfantine, Op. 17 (1928)', so I imagine that this might well be the piece involved.

[semloh]

How did I miss that!? Thanks, Alan.

[Alan Howe]

It's the French teacher in me...

[JimL]

The Symphonie enfantine is mentioned right in the text of the Wiki article, as well as two full symphonies, two piano concertos and a violin concerto.  This guy seems to be a major warplane who's been flying under the radar (he participated in 5 wars).

P.S. PC 1 is subtitled A Night in Montmartre, the 2nd is for piano and strings only.  If this fellow's idiom is as described, and he was a pupil of Melartin, the VC sounds positively delectable.  There's also a rondo for orchestra called The Cyclist that sounds like it might be delightful.

[britishcomposer]

Klami is fine indeed, one of the major Finnish symphonic composers. He started quite rebellious. Stravinsky was a potent influence esp. rhythmically. The Symphonie enfantine could have been written by Ravel, though. He was a great orchestrator. In his Violin Concerto he is sometimes almost quoting from Sibelius's - but that seems to be a regular feature: he consciously works on a model to make something profoundly original of it. In later years he wrote more austere, the 2nd Piano Concerto has been compared to Shostakovich. BTW, The Cyclist was commissioned by the Finnish committee for youth sports.

[Alan Howe]

I've got the 1st Symphony and VC on order (different CDs), so I'm all anticipation...

[Delicious Manager]

I would have to concur with Klami's quality as a composer. I'm not sure the Violin Concerto is the best of him, however (for that, perhaps look to the Kalevala Suite or Sea Pictures, as well as his ballet Pyörteitä (Whirls). The Symphonie enfantine is available on BIS-CD-806.

[britishcomposer]

I like his two Symphonies but they aren't quite up to his standard I think. He was a brilliant tone painter and witty orchestrator somewhere between Sibelius, Ravel and Stravinsky but his symphonies give the impression that he felt somehow inhibited by the high standards of this great form. Maybe I am wrong...