Finnish Works for Violin and Orchestra
Linda Hedlund (violin)
La Tempesta Orchestra/József Hárs
rec. 2024, Roihuvuori Church, Helsinki, Finland
Naxos 8.579185 [62]
This is a collection of Finnish works for violin and orchestra written during two decades of the mid-20th century. The majority are not concertos but shorter fantasy pieces. They have not found a home in front of audiences in the world’s concert halls. As to style, you should think in terms of a strong Nordic echo of repertoire akin to Tzigane or Havanaise. The music-making is stylishly done by unfamiliar forces comprising a soloist and an orchestra with a Finnish-Hungarian conductor. The satisfying atmosphere, transparency and depth of the Naxos recorded stage makes for an eloquent platform.
This ‘sort’ of music occasionally used to keep company in BBC Radio 3’s programme ‘Through the Night’ which still struggles along triumphant, characterful and personable. In more recent years it has sprung up on the YLE (the Finnish ‘Radio 3’) website. Before that it could be heard in the vinyl-clad 1960s and 1970s on the valiant and now defunct Fennica record label. It could then feature in the splendidly swashbuckling Finlandia-Warner Meet the Composer duo-CD series and on the Ondine label.
We start with Palmgren who is known for his five intricately tuneful and romantic piano concertos. His single movement Concert Fantasy shadows Sibelius’s Humoresques (do try to hear Aaron Rosand in these and what a pity that the terribly underestimated Vilde Frang has not recorded all six); just swirl into the mix a dash of bitters from Saint-Saëns and Sarasate. This is winsomely succulent stuff and violinist Linda Hedlund immerses herself in it with total conviction. OK, it can drift close to the shoals of sentimental but its spell is splendid and it avoids the caramel excesses.
Haapalainen’s velvet and darkly couched Vision is a magical ‘short’. Aare Merikanto’s three-movement Violin Concerto No. 4 is just as poised and fantastic – seeming to stray out of the misty pages of Ravel’s Ma mère l’oye. It is a delicate and florid work. Raitio’s Legend is a chilly and atmospherically catchy ‘anhang’ to the Sibelius Humoresques. His Notturno was written three years after the Legend but is from the same ardently melodic creative world. Nils-Eric Fougstedt is perhaps best known as a radio studio conductor. He was associated with the music of Atterberg, Raitio and Klami. Think of him as a Finnish Stanford Robinson or Ashley Lawrence. His writing is tonal but more stark than the others gathered on this CD. It is finely spun but with a tougher Stravinskian vertebra. If he needs ‘redemption’ it is to be found in the chattering whirl of his Concertino’s finale. The lacy brevity that is the Englund Romance was written under a pseudonym. It is drawn from the score this symphonist wrote for the film Omena putoaa (‘The Apple Falls’).
Naxos is to be congratulated on grouping these works – mostly premiere recordings – without leavening the mix with the more obvious and ‘safer’ choices. The label has once again pushed the repertoire to the uttermost skerries of enchantment.
Rob Barnett
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Contents
Selim Palmgren (1878–1951)
Concert Fantasy, Op. 104 (1944)
Väinö Haapalainen (1893–1945)
Näky (Vision) (1920)
Aarre Merikanto (1893–1958)
Violin Concerto No. 4 (1954)
Väinö Raitio (1891-1945)
Legenda (1935)
Notturno (1938)
Nils-Eric Fougstedt (1910-1961)
Violin Concertino (1955)
Einar Englund (1916–1999)
Omena putoaa (The Apple Falls): Romance (1952)
