Nordic Highlights 4 2013

NORDIC

HIGHLIGHTS

4/2013

NEWSLETTER FROM GEHRMANS MUSIKFÖRLAG & FENNICA GEHRMAN

Einojuhani Rautavaara at 85

Mirjam Tally & Jonas Valfridsson

Swedish MPA Awards 2013

Photo: Elias Sjögren

The Swedish Music Publishers’ special anniversary prize was handed out on 8 November to the Grand Old Man of Swedish music Ingvar Lidholm for his lifetime achievements within music. Sven-David Sandström received the Classical Music Award of the Year in the orchestra/opera category for his Requiem, in which he has created “a work rich in sonorous and melodic beauty”. We congratulate both prize winners!

Art song fever The new anthology Svenska romanser (115 Swedish Art Songs) was released in connection with a concert in November. Pianist Bengt Forsberg presented songs from the book together with singers Hillevi Martinpelto and Erik Rosenius. In January an art song collection for English speakers, Romanser – 24 Swedish Songs, is due to be published. It includes phonetic (IPA) and word-for-word English translations, a concise guide to Swedish diction, and more information.

NORDIC

4/2013

NEWSLE T TER FROM GEHRMANS MUSIKFÖRLAG & FENNICA GEHRMAN

Sound samples , video clips and other material are available at www.gehrmans.se/highlights Cover photos: Einojuhani Rautavaara (Photo: Heikki Tuuli), Mirjam Tally (Photo: Mattias Ahlm), Jonas Valfridsson (Photo: Cato Lein) 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 2013

HIGHLIGHTS

4/2013

Lady Macbeth in Örebro Johan Ullén’s Lady Macbeth was premiered before an enthusiastic Örebro audience on 3 October by mezzo-soprano Katarina Karnéus and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra/Gérhard Korsten. The original version was composed on commission from the Swedish Radio in 2009 and consists of three songs to texts by Shakespeare for mezzo and piano. In the new 25-minute orchestral version, Johan Ullén has added an atmospheric prelude, a grand orchestral interlude, as well as a short but “horribly triumphant” epilogue to the songs, creating a dramatic scene.

Kalevi Aho Composer in Residence at Loisiarte Kalevi Aho is to be Composer in Residence at the Loisiarte festival in Austria on 27–30 March 2014. The festival for contemporary music and literature will present choral and chamber music by Aho, who will join the four-day event. At the opening concert his string quintet Hommage à Schubert will be paired with Schubert piano trios. The Finnish focus at Lousiarte 2014 also includes selected works by Olli Mustonen.

Tommie Haglund – Music of the Soul On 5 October Anders Gustafsson’s acclaimed documentary “Tommie Haglund – Music of the Soul” was broadcast on Swedish Television. Now it is possible to watch the film on Sempre Media’s homepage with subtitles in English (http:// sempremedia.se). Gustafsson has followed the multifaceted Haglund for four years. He writes music, which is often lyric, and derives inspiration from among other things, nature, primitive people, outer space and Fredrick Delius. It has been said that a streak of spirituality permeates his tonal language.

Release of Kärkkäinen focus concert Pilfink Records are releasing Alchemy 2006, the concert of works by Tommi Kärkkäinen, in digital format. It will be available at all leading online distribution points in December 2013 and later possibly in DVD format. Performed at Musica nova Helsinki in 2006, Alchemy 2006 was a visually spectacular multimedia concert of tape and chamber music.

Photo: Per Möller

Award statuettes designed

by Bertil Vallien

HIGHLIGHTS

Photo: Ghadi Boustani

NEWS

Photo: Mikael Rydenfelt

PREMIERES November 2013–March 2014 Kortekangas premieres & recordings Olli Kortekangas has three premieres in November-December. His latest work for solo viol was performed by Varpu Haavisto on 27 November, while Adventus, a fantasy for organ, and five new Christmas Carol arrangements can be heard in Naantali on 8 December. Varpu Haavisto has also been involved in five earlier works by Kortekangas for period instruments, and there are plans for recording them. Jan Lehtola is also making a CD of organ music by Kortekangas.

TOMMIE HAGLUND String Trio - Sollievo (dopo la tempesta)

Trio ZilliacusPerssonRaitinen 11.11. Stockholm, Sweden

OLLI KORTEKANGAS Ai margini della luce

Varpu Haavisto, solo viol 27.11. Tampere, Finland Adventus, fantasy for organ, Five Christmas Song Arrangements

Tiina-Maija Koskela, soprano, Nicholas Söderlundh, bass-baritone, Tuomas Tainio, percussion, Kari Vuola, organ 8.12. Naantali, Finland

JYRKI LINJAMA Das fließende Licht der Gottheit

Photo: Jean-Michel Gueugnot

Susannah Haberfeld, mezzo-soprano, Ilmo Ranta, piano 12.12. Espoo, Finland

Schnelzer news The Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and the Stockholm Royal Philharmonic are commissioning a 25-minute Concerto for Orchestra by Albert Schnelzer for the 2014/2015 season.

The premiere is scheduled for 26 November, 2014 in Gothenburg. The BBC Symphony Orchestra has announced that Kirill Karabits will conduct the world premiere of Schnelzer’s Tales from Suburbia, at the Barbican Centre London on 15 March, 2015. Subsequent to that, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra will give the Swedish premiere in Stockholm.

ALBERT SCHNELZER Animal Songs

Helsingborg SO/Clemens Schuldt, sol. Susanna Andersson, soprano 12.1. Helsingborg, Sweden

SVEN-DAVID SANDSTRÖM Number Four

NorrlandsOperan SO/Rumon Gamba 16.1. Umeå, Sweden St Matthew Passion

Staatskapelle Halle, Philharmonischer Chor Berlin, Uppsala Academic Chamber Choir, Gustaf Sjökvist Chamber Choir/Stefan Parkman 16.2. Berlin, Germany

TOBIAS BROSTRÖM On Urban Ground

NorrlandsOperan SO/Rumon Gamba 18.1. Umeå, Sweden

Tapio Tuomela website Composer Tapio Tuomela has set up a website in Finnish and English at http://tapiotuomela. fi. In addition to a composer biography, reviews and sound bites, the site includes samples of new scores such as his saxophone concerto Swap and the Suite française for wind ensemble.

New Rautavaara publications In honour of his 85th birthday, Fennica Gehrman has published five works by Einojuhani Rautavaara this autumn. Two of these are for mixed choir: Ave Maria, gratia plena and Four Romances from the opera Rasputin. Four Songs to Poems by Aleksis Kivi is for male choir. Hymnus for trumpet and organ, and Con spirito di Kuhmo for violin and cello are now also available as sheet music.

MIRJAM TALLY Lament

NorrlandsOperan SO/Rumon Gamba 23.1. Umeå, Sweden From Darkness to Light

Norrlandopern SO, Sångkraft Chamber Choir/Risto Joost 28.2. Umeå, Sweden

ANDERS ELIASSON Trio d’archi – Ahnungen

Trio ZilliacusPerssonRaitinen 10.2. Stockholm, Sweden

DANIEL BÖRTZ Sinfonia 12

Photo: Peter Adamik

Ruiz plays Martinsson The Venezuelan double bass phenomenon Edicson Ruiz has taken up Rolf Martinsson´s Double Bass Concerto in his repertoire. The first performance took place last autumn in Caracas with the Simon Bolivar Orquesta, and in April Ruiz was a guest of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra. In October he played the concerto with the Youth Orchestra of Caracas in Tokyo. Ruiz tells that “the piece caused an emotional tsunami in Japan. The audience went crazy.” At the end of December Ruiz will give another four performances in Alicante, Spain.

Swedish Radio SO/Daniel Blendulf 15.2. Stockholm, Sweden

JONAS VALFRIDSSON A Sudden Recollection: Le Jardin des Plantes

Norrköping SO/Michael Francis 27.2. Norrköping, Sweden

MIKKO HEINIÖ Five Preludes for Guitar

Patrik Kleemola 21.3. Milan, Italy (Giornate Festival)

HIGHLIGHTS

4/2013

Photo: Heikki Tuuli

Composing a way of life for Einojuhani Rautavaara Einojuhani Rautavaara is the epitome of Finnish classical music and probably second only to Sibelius as the Finnish composer whose works are most often performed abroad. At 85, he nowadays still composes for a few hours a day.

The 1970s were a trying time in Rautavaara’s private life. A new, more tranquil period began when he married again in the mid-1980s. It was then that he discovered the mode of expression that has continued right up to the present.

“While I was composing my fifth symphony, it occurred to me that a symphony is more than just some kind of scheme or mould. It is a way of thinking, one in which there is no rush to create musical drama. There’s no hurry to get things done quickly to make way for the next ones. I wanted to compose long continua I could settle down in.”

Snowball effect

E

inojuhani Rautavaara wrote his first compositions while still at school, sitting at the piano and experimenting with chords until he learnt to induce a state reminiscent of trance. His career got off to a brisk start when, in 1954, his A Requiem in Our Time won a composition competition in the United States. It was performed now and then on the radio, and heard by Jean Sibelius, who had by then sunk into silence at Ainola. For his 90th birthday in 1955, a US foundation gave Sibelius a grant named after conductor-composer Sergei Koussevitzky, to be awarded to a young composer.

“It was an unusual birthday present, and the gratifying verdict fell on me,” Rautavaara still recalls in amazement. “The trip to the United States was to signify a decisive change in my development. I went and thanked Sibelius for the grant, and on my return, for the chance of spending nearly two years at the Juilliard School of Music and the Tanglewood Music Center.”

Breakthrough work Rautavaara’s career as a professional composer began after the years spent in the United States. His breakthrough came when the University of Oulu commissioned him to compose something for its degree ceremony in 1972.

The result was a work that has since become a classic: the Cantus arcticus concerto for birds and orchestra . The cries of the birds are taped.

Rautavaara was not immediately aware he had struck gold. Not until the concerto was recorded did it begin to be played by foreign radio stations, and enquiries soon poured in from all over the world. The Cantus arcticus is still by far the most often-performed orchestral work by him: over the past ten years it has been played 25–57 times a year at concerts across the world, and that does not include broadcasts on the radio.

HIGHLIGHTS

4/2013

From then onwards, things began to happen. The scores of Rautavaara’s five symphonies were published in the late 1980s and the Ondine record company released them on two discs. A booklet and sampler disc of orchestral music by him was produced by his publisher. Under gentle pressure from Ondine, the seventh symphony of 1994 was renamed Angel of Light . This all set a snowball effect in motion. All over the world, people eagerly began to await new orchestral works, concertos and operas by Einojuhani Rautavaara; they got wide press coverage and went out on hundreds of radio stations. Rautavaara had become a symbol of international success in contemporary music.

Though no precise public statistics are available, Einojuhani Rautavaara is, with his 216 works, probably second only to Sibelius as the Finnish composer whose works are most often performed. He still spends a few hours a day composing. “I can’t manage more, but composing is a way of life for me. I’ll go on doing it, I hope, until the end.”

Pekka Hako This article is a shortened version of that published in Teostory.

Rautavaara quotes A young person must collect traumas. They are engines, sources of energy.

An artist should have a charismatic relationship with the audience.

The worst thing he can do is to express and interpret himself.

If you’re very profoundly and thoroughly bohemian, you don’t really have time to make art. This is my experience, because being bohemian is awfully time-consuming. It’s a job in itself.

A young composer must learn everything – and not obey anything but the will of the work in progress.

Nothing in the world goes on forever. That is what’s so terrific.

Photo: Mattias Ahlm

Photo: Cato Lein

Mirjam Tally and Jonas Valfridsson

in the limelight Mirjam Tally and Jonas Valfridsson are two new interesting composer profiles on the Swedish contemporary music scene.

Could you describe your music shortly?

Mirjam Tally (MT): The most important element in my music is no doubt colour. I often think visually, and associate tones with colours.

I also try to broaden my palette with different kinds of noise sound. Stylistically, I have been influenced by both minimalism and modernism, and mix elements of the two in my music.

Jonas Valfridsson (JV): What I strive for in my music is above all beauty, which for me is something fleeting and elusive. This is probably why my music is often distinguished by the mystical and fragile. Throughout the years I have developed a rather characteristic sound, a lyrical treatment of quite modern sonorities.

Where do you find your inspiration?

MT: I often take long walks or go for bike rides.

On the island of Gotland, where I live, there are good opportunities and beautiful natural scenery for that. I am also an amateur photographer, and look for the same thing in my musical creativity as when I take pictures: colour, light and space.

JV: For me it comes quite randomly and unexpectedly. Suddenly one thought collides with another and everything seems clear, the music is just there. It is vital for me to have the discipline to go on composing even when I am not inspired.

Inspiration is a bonus, but it is not always there.

Jonas, your works often have lengthy and poetic titles. Do you derive inspiration from them?

JV: No, the title often comes later on during my work on the piece. For me it is actually not that important, but for the listener it can be absolutely decisive for how he or she approaches the work, for what is to be anticipated. For this reason I often try to give the work a title that stimulates the imagination and sticks out a bit.

You both made major breakthroughs with your first works for symphony orchestra.

MT: Indeed, my work Turbulence was performed both at the ISCM World New Music Days and at the Venice Biennale in 2008. It was also awarded the Little Christ Johnson Prize.

It is probably the work in which I have gone the farthest with my musical experimenting.

I worked more with sound qualities than with pitches. Various kinds of factory and machine sounds were important sources of inspiration.

There is also an electric guitar here that puts its characteristic stamp on the work.

JV: When I began writing In Killing Fields Sweet Butterfly Ascend the orchestral medium was new to me, and I learned novelties at such a fast pace that I had to revise and re-orchestrate a number of times. In the end it turned out to be a highly concentrated and poetical work, three short movements that flutter transitorily by. It won third prize in the 2007 Toru Takemitsu Composition Award. The reception in Tokyo was a powerful experience. The title was charged with meaning for the seniors in the audience, since it alluded to the War. When it was announced that I “only” came in third a murmur of disappointment went through the auditorium; I’ll never forget that.

Three years later I won the Uppsala Composition Competition with The Only Thing That You Keep Changing Is Your Name.

Mirjam, your violin concerto Birds and Shadows was performed by John Storgårds and the Lapland Chamber Orchestra during the Nordic Music Days in Helsinki this October. Can you tell us something about this work?

MT: It’s a lyrical work with a melody in the centre that ties everything together. Around this I have built a landscape with whisperings, noise and rhythmical elements. Over and above their playing, the musicians in the orchestra also get to participate in the whispering.

On 27 October the Jönköping Sinfonietta gave the first performance of A Fragmented Memory; My Overgrown Little Tree House.

Jonas, what was it like to compose for the orchestra of your old home town?

JV: I tried to pack this piece with experiences of a more personal nature. I’m not usually so private in my works, but here memories from my childhood and places I have visited offer some

sort of ambient sound, hence the title. It became my version of nature romanticism, an angle of approach that has earlier been entirely alien to me, but it contributed to a renewal and ended up a very fine work.

What are you working on at the moment?

JV: My first priority is a work for string orchestra commissioned by the Stockholm New Chamber Orchestra (SNYKO). Then there are a number of other projects in progress concurrently; but it is this score that is lying on my desk just now.

MT: I have just finished a work, Vortex, for Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, which is to be premiered during the Estonian Music Days in April, 2014. It starts out with very vigorous and rhythmical passages, which are a little unusual for me. Then I have begun sketches on a work for flute, electro acoustics and chamber orchestra for Monika Mattiesen and the Danish Athelas Sinfonietta for early March of next year.

What else is coming up during 2014?

MT: The NorrlandsOpera Symphony Orchestra is going to premiere two works of mine in the beginning of next year. Lament is a companion piece to Beethoven’s Ninth, in which I have used the recitative in the cello part from the beginning of movement IV. I repeat it in my work to such an extent that it almost becomes a kind of mantra, and mix in my typical elements: clusters, bisbigliandos, overtone glissandi etc. Then I have also written a 50-minute work, Light and Darkness for choir and orchestra, to poems by the Sami poet Paulus Utsi.

JV: My new orchestral work, A Sudden Recollection: Le Jardin des Plantes, will receive its premiere performance by the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra on 27 February; I’m excited about this. It will be a kind of distillate of my last two orchestral works, and a sort of balance sheet of the material I have worked with over an extended period.

Kristina Fryklöf

HIGHLIGHTS

4/2013

REPER TOIR E TIPS

REVIEWS

Some 21st century symphonies DANIEL BÖRTZ

JUHA T. KOSKINEN

Sinfonia 12 (2010-2011) Dur: 40’

Symphony No. 1 (2006) Dur: 40’

3343-4441-15-hp-pf-str, solo baritone (Text: Kjell Espmark Sw/Eng)

3333-4331-12-hp-cel-str

Börtz utilises a richly coloured palette in his Twelfth Symphony, in four movements, where he effectively alternates between the large symphony orchestra and more chamber music like sections. Motoric drive, suddenly flourishing dream sequences, gongs and glockenspiel sonorities are incorporated into the music. A baritone soloist appears in the slow second movement, in which Börtz has set a poem by Kjell Espmark.

The middle movement is the heart and dynamo of this refined three-movement symphony – the sun around which the other movements revolve as planets. As work on it progressed, the materials travelled from one movement to another, leaving tracks by the wayside and setting up “colonies”. The symphony also acquired a musical narrative, or rather several, that culminate in the final bars of the last movement.

PASI LYYTIKÄINEN

Sinfonia No. 1 (2003-2004) Dur: 21’ 2222-2200-10-str

Dafgård’s chamber symphony begins with a prelude, which strikes a creepy and desolate mood that remains in the background. A lyrical cantilena that starts out in the first violins puts its imprint on the Sinfonia’s second part, after which follows a Scherzo with a virtuoso clarinet part in the leading role. The finale is divided into a slow and a fast section, and reverts to material from both the slow beginning and the rhythmically playful Scherzo.

Symphony (2006) Dur: 40’ 2222-4230-11-str

Lyytikäinen likens his first symphony to a journey: “My music is like a passing winter landscape. There are changing sound views, sometimes open fields and sometimes icy rocks.” In the focus of attention are not only stringed instruments but also French horns, which have an important role in presenting new thematic motifs. The march episodes in the second movement add Shostakovich-like irony to the vigorous music.

PEHR HENRIK NORDGREN ANDERS ELIASSON

Symphony No. 8 (2006) Dur: 25’

Symphony No. 4 (2005) Dur: 25’

2222-4220-13-hp-pf+cel-str

Eliasson’s fourth symphony seizes the listener by the throat, at the same time as it conveys a most singular beauty with its tenderly entreating melodic melancholy. It is music charged with energy, constantly moving forward with strong and steady force. But at the very end comes a sudden opening to something else: the symphony ebbs away in a short epilogue with a flitting solo for flugelhorn.

The whole gamut of life is woven into what was to be the last symphony by Nordgren; the expression is dream-like in places, as if reaching out into another reality. The expectant mood of the first movement, Minore, and the clock-like tick of two notes (A-F) stimulate associations with the relentless passing of time. The delicate, limpid Intermezzo leads to a movement entitled Maggiore that is full of joie de vivre and marked by a rollicking folk tune quotation.

HALVOR HAUG

SVENDAVID SANDSTRÖM

Symphony No. 4 (2001) Dur: 23’

Symphony No 3 – Kärlekens fyra ansikten (Four Faces of Love, 2006) Dur: 35’

4333-6331-13-str

3333-4331-13-hp-str

Haug composed his Fourth Symphony in the autumn of 2001, deeply affected by the events of 9/11. The symphony, conceived in one single movement, expresses sadness, anxiety and powerlessness, but Haug also wants the listener to perceive the feeling of hope that is concealed in the music. The end is quite lovely when Haug lets the bells sound over a soft carpet of strings. The symphony is dedicated to “all innocent victims of terrorism around the world”.

HARRI VUORI Symphony No. 2 (2007) Dur: 38’

HIGHLIGHTS

4/2013

Tobias Broström: Samsara, Cello Concerto CD: Västerås Sinfonietta/Johannes Gustavsson, Hugo Ticciati, Johan Bridger, Mats Rondin (dBCD154)

Angels and furies The most gorgeous piece of the evening was Kimmo by recently deceased Anders Eliasson. Six percussionists filled the auditorium with angels and furies. In the slow middle movement the trumpet stood out like a sorrowfully singing Orpheus, before the third movement´s journey into the percussionists´ paradise where the blissful trumpet was welcomed by three pairs of cymbals. Sydsvenskan 28.10.

Anders Eliasson: Kimmo Håkan Hardenberger, Bridger & Friends, 25.10.2013 Malmö, Sweden Benjamin Staern in Helsinki

This symphony is built around four texts by poet Ylva Eggehorn reflecting on the vicissitudes of life, the extraordinary in the ordinary. The tumultuous sound forces, violent eruptions in the percussion and densely interwoven strings, form an expressive soundscape around the sensitive, elegiac, ardent and melodious vocal part.

PAAVO HEININEN The fifth symphony followed the fourth after an interval of over 30 years. The very opening already says what to expect: a true orchestral horn of plenty. Heininen describes the music as thematic-melodic, with details festooning its textural simplicity. There are studies in harmonic colour, Baroque-like allusions, and a violin in the background evoking associations with Heininen’s Violin Concerto of 1999.

In Tobias Broström´s Samsara we are immersed in a floating state, lyrically shimmering, rhythmically exuberant, where we never reach firm ground…The concluding Cello Concerto offers a darker, more dramatic sound palette. The finale is quite in the manner of Sibelius, with its glittering French horn part emerging out of the energetic whirlpool of strings. Topnotch!

Dagens Nyheter 11.9.

2222-4230-12-hp-str, solo mezzo-soprano Text: Ylva Eggehorn (Sw)

Symphony No. 5 (2003) Dur: 33’ 3333-4330-14-hp-cel-str

Topnotch Broström

2222-2210-02-hp-pf-str

Powerful Jubilate in Helsinki

The chords in Vuori’s second symphony are based on manipulated spectral harmonies, and the result is astoundingly bright “spatial” music. Vuori also speaks of the reconciliation of opposing worlds. The translucent, glittering harmony is offset by symphonic grandeur and spectacular orchestral effects.

In the Swedish composer Benjamin Staern´s Jubilate there is powerful energy and a lot of “go”, not unlike in the music of Magnus Lindberg and Sebastian Fagerlund. Staern writes diligently for orchestra at the same time as he keeps a firm grip on the listener thanks to his sense of dramaturgy. Hufvudstadsbladet 19.10.

Benjamin Staern: Jubilate Finnish premiere: Helsinki PhO/Baldur Brönnimann, 18.10.2013 Nordic Music Days Helsinki, Finland

Photo: Mirjam Tally

JÖRGEN DAFGÅRD

Martin Fröst

Fröst showed off in this work that was specially written for him: from swelling crescendi to magnificent glissandi and vocal/playing passages. It put on display his whole gamut of technical skill. But mere virtuosity does not make a concert.

It was the masterly fusion of the solo instrument and the ensemble that made it “Concert Fantastique”… with its at times expressionistic, at times seemingly modern sounds it made the “Première Rapsodie” for clarinet and orchestra by Claude Debussy, with all its impressionistic tone painting, seem almost colourless by comparison. Der Bund 12.10.

Photo: Mats Bäcker

Swedish clarinet show

A consummate work and exceedingly delicate music.

And with what fire and glow was it performed!

Hufvudstadsbladet 17.11.

Erkki Melartin: Traumgesicht Finnish RSO/Hannu Lintu, 14.11.2013 Helsinki Finland Erkki Melartin

Rolf Martinsson: Concert Fantastique Swiss premiere: Berne SO/Rumon Gamba, sol. Martin Fröst, 10.10.2013 Berne, Switzerland

Diversity and beauty The world of sound seems to be as diversified and beautiful for Kortekangas as nature itself. The work irradiates various delicate moments in different shades.

The music proceeds naturally from classical to jazzy and even to Negro-spiritual expression, yet without being any patchwork quilt… Sowing the Seed is a magnificent kaleidoscope of notes, words and timbres. Aamulehti 15.9.

Colourful film music by Hakola Hakola uses the symphony orchestra cleverly, colourfully and dramatically…the music may also be thought of as a fairly independent concert piece inspired by a film. Helsingin Sanomat 13.10.

A successful investment by the RSO culminating in a way that is spectacular to say the least. The score is fearlessly melodic, rich in timbres and where nec-

A refined riot of colour by Melartin

essary decorated in folk style, lyrically sensitive or dramatically expressive – whatever the moment demands. Hufvudstadsbladet 13.10.

Kimmo Hakola: Music for the silent film Tukkijoella World premiere: Finnish RSO/Santtu-Matias Rouvali, 11.10.2013 Helsinki, Finland

Olli Kortekangas: Seven Songs for Planet Earth Finnish premiere: Tampere PO, Tampere Philharmonic Choir/Jani Sivén, sol. Tuija Knihtilä, Aarne Pelkonen, 13.9.2013 Tampere, Finland

Pettersson x 2 in Norrköping Emotional power in Haglund’s Trio

Work by Heiniö the highlight of a choral disc

There is a heartrending beauty in Haglund’s vibrant music that sometimes makes you feel the need to hold onto something. But in the new string trio this has evolved into the form of a healing process of mourning… The emotional power was at least as compelling. Dagens Nyheter 13.11.

Mikko Heiniö’s 18-minute Maria Suite is the highlight of the disc… Heiniö, 65, is 20 years younger than Einojuhani Rautavaara but has much in common with his older colleague, not least an interest in language…

The esoteric, dissonant harmonies and the slow tempos evoke also associations with Rautavaara… Åbo Underrättelser 23.10.

Allan Pettersson: Symphonies Nos. 4 and 16 Norrköping SO/Christian Lindberg, 31.10.2013 Norrköping, Sweden Photo: Maarit Kytöharju/Music Finland

Mikko Heiniö: Maria Suite, for mixed choir CD: Key Ensemble/Teemu Honkanen (Fuga 9351)

Photo: Sami Helenius

Tommie Haglund: String Trio - Sollievo (dopo la tempesta) World premiere: Trio ZilliacusPerssonRaitinen, 11.11.2013 Stockholm, Sweden

Here [Symphony No. 16] in the myriads of ideas and impulses there are more often glimpses of jazz and playfulness than of gloom and harshness, and a warm melancholy at the end where Jörgen Pettersson´s fervent tone is supported by soft strings… It [Symphony No. 4] is swarming with exquisite details of orchestration, dexterity, and the technique behind the performance is impressive. Folkbladet 6.11.

Lars Karlsson

Focus on Lars Karlsson

Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra

Puumala and Sibelius The Sibelius melodramas with a modern work by Veli-Matti Puumala in between them made an unusual programme in which compositions born of two different worlds complemented one another. Puumala convinced me already four years ago with his Memorial Fragment. Keskipohjanmaa 22.9.

Veli-Matti Puumala: Rime World premiere: Ostrobothnian ChO/Tuomas Hannikainen, 20.9.2013 Kokkola, Finland

Karlsson knows how to handle a choir in an artful and firmly polyphonic way… Jaguaren is a wild work building up to a combustive and primitive witches’ dance. The surprise at the concert was the magnificent soloist Kristian Lindroos in the powerful, broodingly ecstatic Pär Lagerkvist song cycle. The two freshly refined chamber works, Arioso and Koralmetamorfoser, brought out Karlsson’s softly lyrical side.

Helsingin Sanomat 10.11.

Lars Karlsson: Åländsk symfoni, Tre motetter, Koralmetamorfoser, Arioso, Seven Songs to Texts by Pär Lagerkvist Jubilate/Timo Nuoranne, Akademen/Kari Turunen, Wegelius Chamber Strings/Arturo Alvardo, etc., 8.11.2013 Helsinki, Finland

HIGHLIGHTS

4/2013

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

NEW CDs

VOCAL EINOJUHANI RAUTAVAARA TINA ANDERSSON Love’s Philosophy

Love’s Philosophy Mixed choir a cappella

for eight-part mixed choir a cappella Text: Percy B. Shelley (Eng)

Four Romances from the opera Rasputin/ Neljä romanssia oopperasta Rasputin

for mixed choir Text: the composer (Eng/Fin)

GE 12287

FG 9790-55011-148-6

ULRIKA EMANUELSSON Rösten ur mörkret sjunger

Neljä laulua Aleksis Kiven runoihin (Four Songs to Poems by Aleksis Kivi)

for mixed choir a cappella Text: Göran Sonnevi (Swe)

for male choir Text: Aleksis Kivi (Fin)

GE 12255

CHRISTIAN ENGQVIST

It Is so Peaceful here Now

FG 979-0-55011-158-5

Lyrics and music

Version for Mixed choir a cappella

KARIN REHNQVIST

It Is so Peaceful here Now

Världsklockan

for mixed choir or male choir a cappella Text: the composer (Eng)

for mixed choir and violoncello Text: Harry Martinson (Swe)

GE 12199 (SATB) GE 12293 (TTBB)

STAFFAN LINDBERG ARR

GE 12288 (SATB) GE 12290 (TTBB)

SATB, violoncell

Staffan Lindberg

Vittskövlevisan

for mixed choir or male choir and piano Text: Trad. (Swe)

Världsklockan

GE 12252

V i t t s k ö v l ev i s a n för manskör

SVENDAVID SANDSTRÖM

KALEVI AHO

The Half-finished Heaven

Symphony No. 15, Double Bass Concerto, Minea

for six-part mixed choir a cappella Text: Tomas Tranströmer (Eng)

Lahti SO/Osmo Vänskä, Jaakko Kuusisto, Dima Slobodeniouk, sol. Eero Munter, double bass

GE 12356

BIS-SACD-1866 The Half-finished Heaven

Text: Tomas Tranströmer

FREDRIK SIXTEN

Mixed choir a cappella

MIKKO HEINIÖ

Staffansvisa från Orust

Magnificat & Nunc dimittis

Maria Suite

for mixed choir or male choir and piano Text: Trad. (Swe)

for mixed choir and organ Text: Luke I and Luke II (Lat)

Key Ensemble/Teemu Honkanen

GE 12289 (SATB) GE 12291 (TTBB)

ALLAN PETTERSSON

EVERT TAUBE/ARR: ROBERT SUND

Symphony No. 9

Norrköping SO/Christian Lindberg DVD included: Vox Humana, TV documentary (1973-78)

Fuga 9351

GE 12304

LEEVI MADETOJA

Fragancia

Kootut yksinlaulut ja duetot 1-2 (Solo Songs and Duets 1-2)

for mixed choir or male choir and piano Text: the composer (Swe)

FG 9790-55009-000-2 & 55009-001-9

GE 12249 (SATB) GE 12250 (TTBB)

BIS-2038

EINOJUHANI RAUTAVAARA Notturno e Danza

ORCHESTRA & CHAMBER

INSTRUMENTAL

Erkki Palola, violin & Teppo Koivisto, piano Pilfink JJVCD-124 (”Reflections”)

ALBERT SCHNELZER

ANDERS ELIASSON

TOMMI KÄRKKÄINEN

Trio d’archi – Ahnungen

Tener tenebrum 1 & 2

Apollonian Dances

for string trio

for guitar

Hugo Ticciati, violin, Henrik Måwe, piano

GE 12262 (score and parts)

FG 9790-55011-159-2

Orchid Classics ORC 100038 (“Sonic Philosophy: Colour and Affect”)

EINOJUHANI RAUTAVAARA Con spirito di Kuhmo

for violin and cello FG 9790-55009-945-6

MIRJAM TALLY Birds and Shadows

Concertino for violin and string orchestra GE 12311 (score)

EDUARD TUBIN Complete works volume XXII – Quartets

Piano Quartet in C sharp minor, String Quartet, Elegy for two violins and two violoncellos

ARJA SUORSARANNANMÄKI Colour Keys The Piano ABC, Book A

A new, inspiring tutor for small piano players.

FG 9790-55011-155-4

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

GE 12251 (scores and parts)

JOHAN ULLÉN Lady Macbeth

Gehrmans Musikförlag AB

Fennica Gehrman Oy Ab

for mezzo-soprano and chamber orchestra Text: William Shakespeare (Eng)

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

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)

12357 (study score)