Having recorded his
orchestral music the Finnish company
Alba now turn to Madetoja's piano music.
Here are the complete works taken down
from live performances in Oulu.
The 1910 Festive
March is light-hearted and already
shows Gallic tendencies predictive of
Poulenc. It does not sound Sibelian
in any way. The Six Pieces op. 12 have
one foot in superior salon territory
but the elusive mood of the Folk Song
(CD1 tr. 3) is more substantial. The
Minuet has the same jaunty tone as the
1910 March. A plangent Tchaikovskian
and Rachmaninovian nostalgia meshes
with Fauré-like subtlety in the
Romance (CD1 tr. 7). The Three Pieces
Op. 17 are from the same year and unsurprisingly
are akin to the Op. 12 set. The Five
Miniatures Op. 21 are from two years
later but already the music has become
less salon-generic, more personal and
gentle yet still with a Tchaikovskian
delicacy. The fragile chiming of the
starry Nocturne (CD1 tr. 13) can hold
its head up in any recital and is quite
a discovery - reaching out towards the
night-sky cycles of Urmis Sisask. The
Game reminds me of the lighter piano
pieces of Gustav Holst while The Children's
March is comparable with the work of
Coates. Four Small Pieces are from the
same year - the year in which he wrote
his masterpiece Symphony No. 2 (do try
the Warner Apex recording - superior
to all the competition). Madetoja here
excels in The Shepherd's Dream and A
Little Tale. The other pieces take us
back to the jauntiness and grotesqueries
of the Festive March. The final piece
in the set, A reminiscence, has a gentle
lilt (Fauré perhaps). It is heavy
with the fragrance of summer gardens
and again is decidedly French in feeling.
Morning from his Suite Pastorale is
in much the same contented cradling.
Caprice is a sort of gnomes dance with
romantic Godowskian asides. He gives
us pause with the Legend (CD2 tr. 3)
with its sorrowing undercurrents like
a cross between a Skazka by Medtner
and a Fauré ballade. The concluding
Waltz is a more conventional essay in
grand hotel gestural splendour. The
Garden of Death dates from Madetoja's
fullest maturity. It is his most sensitive
statement for solo piano. There are
three movements. The first, Andante
andantino is tellingly melancholic,
reflecting in its dedication and substance
the death during the Finnish civil war
of Madetoja's brother Yrjö. This
is frankly marvellous music-making and
very poignant. It nonchalantly casts
off the sepia of almost ninety years
and releases emotion as fresh as a teardrop
yet steering away from queasy sentimentality.
The poco lento is nonchalant and of
lesser standing than the Andante. Madetoja
return to form with the final Berceuse
with its poetic romance providing symmetry
with the opening andante. The very short
Freedom March is jolly and perhaps a
bit jingoistically tawdry. The Five
Piano Pieces from 1931 include a Grieg
like Tempo di Menuetto with a flavour
of the Écosse about it. The Canzonetta
has the Purcellian sadness of pieces
from Howells' Clavichord books recently
reissued on Hyperion Helios. The Allegro
Scherzando smacks of Mussorgsky's Unborn
chicks. The second disc closes with
a well-rounded envoi in the shape of
the 1915 Lullaby - and by now we already
know that Madetoja is most at home in
his piano music with Lullabies, Nocturnes
and Andantinos.
As Madetoja makes his
floral way the best of these pieces
remind me of Peterson-Berger's Frösöblomster
and the miniatures of Macdowell and
Cyril Scott.
This valuable set is
most naturally recorded with the piano
sound appositely soft and endearing.
Rännäli seems a fine advocate
for this music which variously is both
a cut above and a cut below that of
Macdowell, Cyril Scott, Bax and the
Australian impressionists such as Mirrie
Hill, Frank Hutchens and Margaret Hyde.
Rännäli is a fine advocate
well attuned to the music and its endearingly
soft melancholia.
Rob Barnett
Mika Rännäli (piano) 
