The Karelia Suite
and Finlandia represent the
familiarity factor and provide reassurance
while listening to this otherwise often
unknown music.
Approaching 44 minutes
of the 1893 Karelia Music,
written as a patriotic sequence
of tableaux vivante, provided the quarry
for the Karelia Suite and the
lesser known Karelia Overture.
The Press Celebration Music -
another historical tableaux work - includes
the grand tune from Finlandia as
Finland Awakes.
In the case of the
Karelia Music, Olilla and the
Tampere Philharmonic take things pretty
briskly. There is no dawdling in the
Overture. They set an invigorating pace
... and it works extremely well. The
shivering quiet gallop of the strings
at the introduction of Karelian Home
is superbly sung by the sopranos Tellu
Virkkala and Anna-Kaisa Liedes. This
exciting ‘tremble’ prefigures a similar
ostinato in the much later Luonnotar.
Tremulous excitement, fanfares and a
bardic majesty characterise the brief
Narimont track. Intermezzo I
is familiar from the Karelia Suite
although there are some pleasingly
unfamiliar orchestrational touches.
Olilla perfectly captures all the pregnant
suspense and accelerating tension of
the music although the banal repetitive
‘oompah’ accompaniment at 2:09 misses
perfection for reasons lying at Sibelius’s
feet. Tableau IV Ballade - Karl Knutsson
in Viipuri Castle is also familiar
in its calming serenity and devotional
processional qualities. Darkly bristling
tension rustles and threatens its way
through the pages of Tableaux V and
VI and those fanfares return. The music
seems to speak of fell deeds, assaults
by night and medieval sieges. Intermezzo
II is well known to us as the finale
of the Karelia Suite. The resinous
solo clarinet introduces the final twin
Tableaux 7 and 8 in tr. 10 where tragedy
threads its way through triumph. The
playing throughout is magnificent and
the blaze of massed singing by the Tampere
Philharmonic Choir in Our Land is
impressive by anyone’s standards.
Then comes almost 35
minutes of Sibelius’s Press Celebrations
Music. This is all excitingly patriotic
stuff and it is played for all it is
worth. There is plenty here to enjoy
and no sense of barrel-scraping. If
you revel in early Sibelius up to the
Second Symphony then you should not
hesitate. The reverential The Finns
Are Baptised is clearly influenced
by Russian Orthodox chant. The rasp
and roll of the brass was later to be
more effectively exploited in Nightride
and Sunrise and the Fourth Symphony.
However it is still there in Duke
John at Turku Castle. It is followed
by a trace of almost Elgarian nobilmente
and Bizet-Hispanic magnificence at 2:35.
A plangent Tchaikovskian oboe plays
in the first part of Tableau 4. The
Great Hostility is abrasively dark
and epic in character which carries
over into the often overlooked coal-black
bark and rasp of the brass in the Introduction
to Finland Awakes. This is the
work we know as Finlandia but
here provided with a different and less
convincing finale.
I enjoyed all of this
music. It may be early Sibelius but
it is radiant with inspiration and can
be enjoyed for its own sake and not
as a precursor to things to come. This
disc also gives a wonderful opportunity
to hear some very familiar music in
an original context.
This is one of a series
of twenty CDs freshly packaged in new
slip cases to mark Ondine’s twentieth
anniversary. The original discs have
been selected from this company’s substantial
back catalogue.
Both Bis and Virgin
have done great work for Sibelius’s
music. Let’s not forget the magnificent
work done by Ondine who time after time
produce faultless no-compromise recordings
like this. This is Sibelius presented
with unshakeable confidence. Outstanding
- one of the glories of the catalogue.
No Sibelian should be without this disc.
Rob Barnett
Tellu Virkkala, soprano 
