One of my favourite baritones has for many years been Jorma
Hynninen. I have had the good luck to hear him in the flesh
on a number of occasions. He was a wonderful Posa in Don
Carlos at the Finnish National Opera when he was well over
sixty. In February 2011 I saw him at the National Opera’s
Almi Hall in the title role of Rautavaara’s Aleksis
Kivi, an opera that Hynninen commissioned and of which he
also sang the title role at the world premiere at Savonlinna
in 1997. I suppose that he has a special feeling for that role
and his singing and acting was little short of miraculous (see
review). He turned
seventy a few weeks later and sang like someone half that age.
When I was offered the opportunity to review the present disc
I readily accepted, in particular since it includes seven songs
to texts by Aleksis Kivi.
I’m fully aware that when hearing a singer live there
are so many factors that have an influence on the total experience,
not least the visual aspect. It has happened more than once
that I have been overwhelmed in the concert hall and then, when
hearing a recording of that occasion, found a lot of things
that were less than good. I marvelled at Joan Sutherland’s
Elvira in I puritani at a concert in Stockholm in the
late 1980s and was very disappointed at her contemporaneous
recording of Anna Bolena. Not so with Hynninen. The voice
is still in fine fettle, there is no strain even at the top,
the timbre is youthful, the vibrato is perfectly controlled,
not a sign of wobble and the tone is fresh with that unmistakable
ring up high. What one misses is more of the beautiful pianissimo
that has always been one of his hallmarks. Now it is mostly
full-throated singing from mezzo-forte and upwards. On the other
hand these songs are often straightforward, direct, folksy and
without the sophistication of Lieder, in particular the Ostrobothnian
folk song settings of Toivo Kuula.
Kuula was commonly regarded as the Finnish composer who seemed
to possess the prerequisites to challenge Sibelius, the giant.
Alas, he wasn’t granted a long life. In 1918 he was killed
during the civil war, not yet 35. Fortunately he was able to
create quite a lot that is today incorporated in the Finnish
standard repertoire. He was also a pioneer in raising interest
in the Finnish folk music treasury that became so important
for generations to come. In his case it was the music of Ostrobothnia,
his native province; he was born in Vaasa. He travelled in the
southern part of the region and brought home 262 songs and 34
instrumental pieces. Some of this material was the basis for
Twelve Ostrobothnian Folk Songs recorded here. His first
arrangements were quite simple: focus was on the melodies with
simple chordal accompaniments by the piano. Later, during his
stays in France, Italy and Switzerland, he developed a more
elaborate technique, where the piano part became more colourful
and illustrative. Kimmo Hakola’s arrangements for string
orchestra were, as I understand it, written specifically for
this recording and they add further colour to the songs. Tuuli
se taivutti koivun larvan (The wind it swayed) is particularly
vivid and expressive.
Of the orchestral pieces on this disc the Prelude and
Intermezzo were written for organ, roughly at the same
time as the songs. Kuula was satisfied with them and wrote in
his diary ‘My inspiration is great and does not seem to
be running out’. The song of the sea, written in
Paris in 1909, was one of seven songs for mixed choir. Compositionally
it is also inspired but the wide vocal range made it almost
impossible to sing. ‘The shrieking soprano was like a
spirit calling in distress and the bass was in danger of being
swamped,’ wrote Armi Klemetti, the wife of Heikki Klemetti,
who conducted the first performance. A string orchestra has
no such limitations and in Pekka Helasvuo’s arrangement
this could be a standard work for chamber orchestras. Kuula’s
best known composition is no doubt the Wedding March,
written in 1908 for the wedding of the sister of his wife-to-be
Alma Silventoinen. It was one of three pieces for piano but
it is often heard in an orchestral version. The string orchestra
arrangement by Juho Näykki may also be made for this recording.
Aleksis Kivi (1834 - 1872) was the first Finnish author of some
importance to write in Finnish. Before him Swedish was the universally
prevailing literary language in Finland. His novel Seven
brothers became a model for later writers in the vernacular
but it was heavily criticised by his contemporaries, which may
have precipitated the mental disease that eventually lead to
his death.
The Kivi Songs were written in 2007 for Jorma Hynninen,
who also premiered them the same year in the original version
for voice and piano. Later he asked Kimmo Hakola to arrange
them for large orchestra and for string orchestra and harp.
They are lovely songs, tonal, melodious and rather simple. ‘Like
a folk song’ I wrote in my notes about Onnelliset
(The happy ones), very Finnish in tone and in 3/4-time. Oravan
laulu (The squirrel) is also catchy while Unelma
(The dream) is harsher, both melodically and harmonically. Is
it a nightmare? Anyway it is threatening in the way dreams sometimes
are. The last stanza says: ‘And I wondered at that dawn
/ Kissing her dewy lips / Was it a ghost I kissed? / I woke
up from my ecstasy.’ In the penultimate song, Oli mulla
kulta kaunoinen (I had a sweetheart fair) it seems that
the poet dances a waltz with his beloved, long since dead. Whether
this is autobiographical or a mere dream is beyond my power
to judge. It is however a lovely song, like all the others,
and I will certainly return to them with pleasure.
The playing of the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra is, as usual,
expert with a homogenous string sound. The orchestra was founded
in 1972 by Juha Kangas and since 1989 it has been a fulltime
professional orchestra with more than 60 discs to its credit.
The recorded sound can’t be faulted and generally speaking
this should be a disc for anyone interested in accessible, high
quality vocal music. Jorma Hynninen has announced that the title
role in Kimmo Hakola’s monologue opera Akseli Gallen-Kallela
(a Finnish painter who was a pioneer for nationalistic art and
thus a parallel to Aleksis Kivi), to be premiered in February
2013, will be his swan song. If so the present disc is a worthy
terminus to an unprecedented artistic and recording career.
Göran Forsling
alternatively
CD: AmazonUK
Jorma Hynninen (baritone) (1 - 12, 15 - 21)
