Markus Hohti / Emil Holmström JOHANNES BRAHMS The Cello Sonatas

THE CELLO SONATAS

Erik T. Tawaststjerna BALLADS & OTHER STORIES

BALLADS & OTHER STORIES

Anu Komsi / Marzi Nyman DUKE ELLINGTON Sacred Concert

SACRED CONCERT

Jyväskylä Sinfonia / St. Michel Strings / Ville Matvejeff PEKKA KOSTIAINEN Triduum Paschale

TRIDUUM PASCHALE

Guadalupe López-Íñiguez & Continuo Group DOMENICO GABRIELLI & ALESSANDRO SCARLATTI Complete Cello Works

Guadalupe López Íñiguez’s debut recording includes complete cello works from Gabrielli and Scarlatti, Recorded with the best baroque musicians in Finland. "I have included music that played an important role in my desired transformation from a “contemporary-trained” cellist to a “historically inspired” one. The reasons for such a desire are numerous and span several years and different experiences in my life,” (Guadalupe). Doctor of Psychology and Master of Music Guadalupe López Íñiguez is a Spanish academic– musician based at the Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki. Guadalupe has performed as a soloist on period cellos in different festivals. She is especially grateful for the encouragement received from artists Rafael Ramos, Markku Luolajan- Mikkola, and Ciro Rodríguez Perelló. Her artistic and scientific research comprises all her areas of expertise—namely psychology, sociology, research methodology, education, and musicology—in understanding the holistic performance of classical music.

Turku Philharmonic Orchestra BRAHMS III SEGERSTAM

"This third [album] in the ALBA-TROSS-series of Brahms-Segerstam juxtapositions is an excellent tidbit of the contents of this unique project with [longbearded rascals] as musical musketeers.... the material has exploded into multiversic infinities..." as Leif Segerstam clearly says about this fabulous third release in the four album series with all four Brahms symphonies and four symphonies from Leif Segerstam’s over 320 symphonies. In this third album is presented Brahms’ third symphony and Leif Segerstam’s symphony no 294, “Songs of a UNICORN heralding...” with Horn obligato played by Tanja Nisonen. Leif Segerstam (b. 1944), conductor, composer, violinist, and pianist, is one of the most versatile musical talents in the Nordic countries. He studied at the Sibelius Academy in 1952-1963 and completed diplomas in violin and conducting. After completing his degree in conducting at Juilliard Music Academy in 1965, Segerstam spent three years conducting the Finnish National Opera. He continued his career with Stockholm’s Royal Opera, and the German Opera and Berlin as well as the Finnish National Opera. His numerous recordings have received wide international acclaim.

Katrine Gislinge / Stenhammar Quartet MOZART Piano Concertos No. 11 - 13

Pianist Katrine Gislinge trained at the Royal Danish Academy of Music, Copenhagen, and Yale University Over the last two decades she has established herself as one the most significant pianists in Scandinavia in both classical and modern repertoire with solo and chamber music concerts throughout Europe She has worked with musicians and conductors such as Okko Kamu, Heinrich Schiff, Gidon Kremer, Kurt Sanderling, Emmanuel Pahud and Gustavo Dudamel In 2014 Katrine premiered and recorded Bent Sørensen’s piano concerto Mignon – Papillons from the trilogy Papillons Katrine will also record the remaining two pieces, Rosenbad for piano quintet and Pantomime for piano and ensemble, to be released in 2017 for Dacapo She has recorded several CDs for, among others, Deutsche Grammophon and, in 2014, an acclaimed CD for Danacord Records with music by Schumann and Per Nørgård, who dedicated one of the works to her With The Danish Piano Trio she has recently released a Dacapo CD with Danish romantic piano trios She is currently recording a selection of Mozart piano concertos in chamber versions with the Stenhammar Quartet to be released for Alba Records in 2017.

Ismo Eskelinen BACH

Ismo Eskelinen’s Bach on guitar is beautiful but safe, and not too exciting. The sonorities are lute-like and gallant, like tiny minuets played by music boxes, and may suit the taste of those who like their Bach thoughtful and relaxed, without mannerism. Of course, there is a time and place for anything, so if, after a tiring workday, I will need a mental relaxation, a warm bath in the shimmery harmonies – and for some reason I don’t have my beloved Angela Hewitt set around – I may well turn to this album.

The E major suite starts with a talkative Prelude. Instead of an Allemande we have an airy, gallant Loure; then enter a humorous Gavotte and two minuets, both rather decorative; a lively, openhearted Bourrée leads into the rhythmical swing of the sunlit, smiling Gigue.
The G minor suite – here transcribed to A minor – is darker and colder. Its structure is more standard for Bach’s suites. The Prelude has a slow, misty-eyed introduction that sounds gray and ancient and leads into the fast fugal part. Eskelinen plays the Allemande very slowly, so it becomes quite static, disjoint and hard to follow. The Courante does not run smoothly, due to minor imperfections of the tempo; I would prefer more lightness in its course. The Sarabande is also very deliberate; it is not a dance anymore, nor any memory of a dance; the sounds just happen and hang in the air, creating echoes, reflections and reminiscences. From this meditation emerges the cool and melodic Gavotte. This is a memorable piece, gallant and serious and a little sad; the performance is again on the slow site, which loses some of the lightness of step. The Gigue sounds antique, like a Dowland galli

ard, more like an epilog than the usual boisterous finale. Overall, the suite sounds very coherent. This is a pensive, unhurried, philosophical reading.Between the Suites and the formidable Chaconne from the second Violin Partita, Eskelinen inserted another piece for meditation: a minuscule transcription of Christ lag in Todesbanden. It is very thoughtful and a bit disjoint. I liked the glassy sound of the highest register.

In the 14.5-minute reading of the Ciaccona, the guitarist declares his intentions from the very beginning: it is grandiose and heavy like a cathedral. The lines are singing, the music is well paced and sounds very natural on a guitar, but weighty, as if the original was not for a violin but for a cello. This steady, poised progress is very appropriate. Some variations receive an unexpected Spanish hue when dressed in the guitar clothes.
The recording is done beautifully; the acoustics are deep and spacious. The guitar sound is captured in its full radiance. There are occasional squeaks and hisses of the fingers moving over strings, but not at the level when it becomes a nuisance.
Listening to this album is like spending a day with your uncle. He keeps teaching you things that seem to be right, but why is this constant teaching so tedious? Another thing about uncles: you miss him when you don’t see him for a long time, but when you spend a day together, you start thinking why did you miss him at all. Something like that happens to me with this disc. I don’t play it on Repeat; but from time to time I find myself in the mood to put it on to listen. It has a mystery appeal. Eskelinen’s approach works well, his intonations are very alive, never even, never repetitive, the music breathes. This set is profound, like a long deep massage. (Oleg Ledeniov)

Anna Kuvaja FLUVIAL

Wonderful debut recording from one of the best young pianists in Finland. Sibelius' amazing versatility comes to the fore in his opus 74, the impressionistic hues and evocative sound-painting of which are connected on this recording to Ravel's play of the water. Byström is one of the very few Finnish composers of the classical era. The set of variations included here exhibits a fine and successful sense of drama. Schubert's A major sonata, the middle one of his last three, brings masterful large-scale thematicism, a stream of affects, and (above all) powerful expression to the programme. 

"As this CD, my debut recording, began to take shape, I felt it important to choose works that felt natural for me as a musician and which would also form a rounded whole as a piano recital. The works by well-known piano composers and Finnish composers which I interpret merge together so as to blur the underlying reflections between them" (Anna Kuvaja)

Kojo / Sundqvist / Aalto / Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra EÖTVÖS - NIELSEN - SALLINEN Levitation

Nielsen’s Clarinet Concerto is an unusual and uncompromising work. Cast in a single movement, and with a strange orchestra of strings, two horns, two bassoons and side drum, it casts a powerful spell. The opening is pastoral and almost neo-classical in atmosphere, giving no clue to the highly dramatic nature of what is to follow. Conflict is at the heart of much of the music, with repeated and sudden changes of mood. (The booklet notes offer a clue to this, in that Aage Oxenvaad, for whom the work was written, suffered from bipolar disorder.) The musical language, too, ranges very widely, from sweet and gentle harmonies to passages where the clarinet screams wildly in a highly chromatic upper register. The work closes in a kind of calm, though all is not resolved. The work has become a classic but has lost little of its power to surprise and challenge. If you are mainly looking for this remarkable work I feel duty bound to recommend an alternative performance from the many distinguished ones available, that by Martin Fröst on BIS. It is coupled with the concerto by Kalevi Aho, complicating an already difficult choice, as the present performance also has very worthwhile and generous couplings. And it is, in any event, a very fine performance. Christoffer Sundqvist is the principal clarinettist of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and his technical mastery is never in doubt. He is brilliant in the more virtuoso passages, and exquisitely tender where required, as in the introspective unaccompanied passage in the first section of the work, as beautifully played here as I have ever heard it. I don’t think he has quite the range of tone colour as Fröst, and the orchestral contribution is not quite so vivid, but the difference is marginal, and Sundqvist’s performance, taken on its own terms, will not disappoint.
And then there is the rest of the programme. The notes tell us that each of the four movements of Peter Eöstvös’s piece explores different aspects of the subject of levitation. The first movement has street furniture - phone boxes and road signs - flying about in a hurricane, whereas the second evokes a recurring dream the composer has of his own body floating, horizontally, over a landscape. The third movement describes gondolas on - or presumably above - Venetian waterways, and the last has Petrushka, buoyant, high above the world that has dealt so cruelly with him. Since the notes, and presumably the composer, give so detailed a “programme” it seems logical to comment on it. In fact, there is not much in the way of contrast in this work. Each movement is a kind of mood painting, with no themes as such, but fragments, motifs, mostly without any discernible pulse. If there were no gaps between the movements I’m not sure that I should know which one I was in, at least, not for the first few hearings. Thus the first-movement conjures up the gentlest, most beguiling hurricane you could imagine, and you will listen in vain, in the third movement “barcarola”, for any suggestion of the characteristic rhythm that normally goes with the name. The writing for the three solo instruments - two clarinets and accordion - is completely without show or bravado. All this does not stop this piece creating a powerful impression. The sounds the composer finds within the ensemble are exquisite and, for the most part, astonishingly tranquil, restful, tender and subtle. Maybe it’s another of those pieces that one would appreciate more, or at any rate no less, if the composer gave no information about it. I enjoyed it enormously the first time I heard it, and it positively compels the listener to return to it.
Getting to know the music of Aulis Sallinen - I would recommend the opera The King Goes Forth To France (Ondine) or any of the symphonies in the admirable CPO series - is an ongoing pleasure that continues with the double concerto on this disc. Its three movements deal with issues related to man’s relationship with animals. The first is a gentle lament for two dolphins drowned in a fisherman’s net in the Baltic Sea, and the third pays homage to the noble bull destined to die in the arena. Only the middle movement, “Les Jeux”, which deals with games, seems to stretch the theme somewhat, the parallels between animals and humans appearing to extend no further than the fact that playing of any kind is unimportant for the survival of a species. The work opens with a duet, accompanied only by timpani, for the two soloists. Other instruments are added gradually, and the movement progresses, via a series of ravishing sounds, to create an unforgettable atmosphere of gentle sadness and regret. Anger at man’s treatment of animals appears in the final movement only in one or two rare passages of display for the soloists. Otherwise this is an expression of deep sorrow that we should be capable of such things. The middle movement is a rapid, colourful scherzo, brilliant and witty, beautifully written for the whole ensemble. The programme is revealed by the composer in the booklet note, with almost no reference to the music. At least the message is a simple one - no complex theorising, nor, thank goodness, any attempt to transform the shape of a dolphin into a musical cipher! And the music itself is at once challenging yet easy enough on the ear to be enjoyed even at first acquaintance, so commentary is scarcely necessary. Even so - and once again - there is no doubt in my mind that the work can be enjoyed just as much by a listener unaware of the message behind it. 

This is a beautifully recorded CD, and the performances from all concerned are exemplary. The side-drum player in the Nielsen is named in the booklet, but not - a serious omission - the accordionist in the Eötvös. Sallinen provides the short commentary on his own work, whereas the informative notes on the other two pieces are by Jouni Kaipainen. All the notes are translated into English by Jaakko Mäntyjärvi, whom many readers will know as a distinguished composer in his own right, especially of choral music. (William Hedley / MusicWeb International)

Baccano BELLA NAPOLI

Naples has always been one of the musical metropolises of Italy, but it became especially important in the first half of the 18th century. Many composers were active in the city, in particular in the realm of opera, and a number of them were also teachers at the various conservatoires. In particular in the 1730s the Neapolitan style began to disseminate across Italy, and even beyond the Italian borders. Some of the best castratos were pupils of one of Naples' most famous composers, Nicola Porpora. One of them was Farinelli, who scored triumphs all over Europe.
This disc brings a programme of music by composers from Naples, although probably not every single piece was composed in Naples. Nicola Porpora and Francesco Mancini were mainly known as composers of music for the theatre, but are represented here with instrumental pieces. It can hardly surprise that these show the traces of their activities in the theatre. In Mancini's Sonata IV this is somewhat limited, especially because of the relatively small dynamic range of the recorder. The opening movement is the most dramatic, consisting of two contrasting sections: a lively spiritoso suddenly shifting into a largo. It doesn't quite come off here. Otherwise the playing is fine, in particular rhythmically. The closing movement is an allegro spiccato - in the baroque era the term 'spiccato' is synonymous with 'staccato'.
In comparison Porpora's Sonata in F is more dramatic, and the cello's wider dynamic range is fully explored. The first allegro is particularly well played, with strong dynamic accents. The following adagio shows a great amount of expression, and the sonata ends with a more relaxed allegro non presto, in a nice dancing rhythm. Domenico Scarlatti hasn't written many pieces for an instrumental ensemble. Here his Sonata for violin and bc in G is played, strangely enough catalogued by Kirkpatrick among the keyboard sonatas. It comprises two expressive graves, which are beautifully played by Mervi Kinnarinen. The two allegros have an infectious rhythmic pulse which is underlined by dynamic accents on the good notes.
Domenico Scarlatti also composed many chamber cantatas, and this part of his oeuvre gets little attention. I wasn't able to find out when No, non fuggire o Nice was written. In the liner-notes for another disc it is suggested that the cantata could have been written for the above-mentioned Farinelli who was in Spain when Domenico was also working there. The cantata consists of two recitative-aria pairs. The second aria in particular has a dramatic character, which Tuuli Lindeberg explores well. She colours her voice nicely, and her lower register is remarkably strong. The delivery is also good, and she takes some liberties in the recitatives. Some words could have been given a little more weight, though. That is also the case in the cantata by Domenico's father Alessandro. It is bad fortune that only last year another disc was released with this same cantata. This was by Clara Rottsolk and the Tempesta di Mare Chamber Players. Ms Rottsolk gives more expression to the text in the recitatives, but the instrumentalists accompanying her are sometimes a little too restrained. That is certainly not the case here: the instrumental parts are executed with theatrical flair. The scoring is rather unusual: recorder, violin, cello and bc. The cantata opens with a sinfonia with two andante sections in which the ensemble is divided: recorder and bc versus violin and cello. There is some good text expression in the first aria, and the lyricism of the second comes off well in Ms Lindeberg's performance.
Lastly the only unknown composer of the programme: Giuseppe Porsile. His first appointment was as vicemaestro di cappella of the Spanish chapel in Naples, but in 1695 he was asked by Charles II to organise the music chapel in Barcelona. He served Charles' successor Charles III, and followed him to Vienna in 1711, when he was crowned emperor. There Porsile remained, composing many operas and oratorios. It is not very likely that Porsile's cantata performed here was composed in Naples. E già tre volte is scored for soprano, recorder and bc, and the two soloists blend perfectly. The first aria is especially expressive, with some chromaticism in the vocal part and the basso continuo, inspired by the text: "My harsh fate seems to pity me for my unhappiness".
Baccano is a Finnish early music ensemble which was founded in 2003. As far as I know this is their first commercial recording, and it is a very fine one. I am impressed by both the technical skills of the individual artists as well as their approach to the music. Their performances are lively and energetic, and the interpretation is well-considered. This is definitely a group to follow and I look forward to their next recordings. (Johan van Veen, MusicWeb International)

Elina Vähälä / Virtuosi di Kuhmo JOSEPH HAYDN Violin Concertos

Haydn's three surviving violin concertos (a fourth is lost but might still resurface) were probably composed between 1765 and 1770. The music from this portion of Haydn's career has lately been subjected to a major re-evalution that's all to the good, rescuing many works from the limbo of halfhearted performances. It's especially helpful in the case of these concertos, which were composed for Haydn's lead virtuoso at Esterháza, Luigi Tomasini (one of the manuscripts even bears the note "fatto per il Luigi," "done for Luigi"). Haydn was not a skilled violinist himself, and the works are not virtuosically conceived. But he likely had input from Tomasini, and the sizable Violin Concerto in A major, Hob. 7a/3, especially benefits from the gutsy approach adopted here by Finland's Virtuosi di Kuhmo and violinist Elina Vähälä, whose playful flair makes an attractive contrast with the rather hard-edged orchestral playing (made even harder-edged by church sound whose lack of naturalness can't be disguised by the high-tech super audio multichannel recording). Vähälä, who is nothing if not photogenic, is a fine Haydn interpreter with a strong sense of the composer's humor. Sample her confident playing in the finale of the Violin Concerto in G major, Hob. 7a/4, where the violin extracts a jolly line from the orchestra's mock-weighty quasi-fugal texture at the beginning. The booklet notes, in English and Finnish, are informative despite a few gaffes -- "empfindsam" is a misleading word for these works, which are sunny and bear no traces of the gloomy, dramatic music of C.P.E. Bach. On balance a strong outing that makes one eager to hear more of what will emerge as Finland's cadre of vigorous young performers take up more music of the Classical era. (James Manheim)