MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

REVIEW Plain text for smartphones & printers

Support us financially by purchasing this from

Einar ENGLUND (1916-1999)
Violin Concerto (1981) [28:39]
Uuno KLAMI (1900-1961)
Violin Concerto Op. 32 (1943, 1954) [28:09]
Benjamin Schmid (violin)
Oulu Symphony Orchestra/Johannes Gustavsson
rec. Helsinki, 8-9 May 2015 (Englund), 4-5 March 2016 (Klami)
ONDINE ODE12782 [57:03]

Here are two Finnish violin concertos each approaching half-hour in duration and each in three movements. Neither is avant-garde, unduly challenging or especially cerebral.

The Englund is the later of the two and while not lushly romantic it is approachable in an open-hearted and welcoming way. It is a passionate work couched in a language that is a slightly saltier version of the idiom of Prokofiev's Second Violin Concerto. The first movement is quite full-lipped but gets into some excitingly abrasive corners. The finale is vibrant and vibrantly put across by soloist and orchestra - the writing has that wistful yet ever so slightly acerbic quality one finds in Rawsthorne. It's a very satisfying concerto but not one that plays supinely to the romantic gallery. It has been recorded before by Kaija Saarikettu on Finlandia and was last seen on the Warner-Finlandia 'Meet the Composer' series - a series that should be reissued given its spread of virtues.

Schmid and the Oulu Orchestra then turn to the Klami Violin Concerto which is a more succulent and even melodramatic work than the much later Englund. It was premiered by Anja Ignatius in Helsinki in 1943 and the score was then lost for ten years. Often Klami's later works - as with Madetoja - tend to desiccation and neo-classicism. Here, while there are some time-marking moments, the music breathes an oxygen-rich air - under the thrall of Sibelius and Prokofiev 1. It's fiendishly active in the outer movements with the finale both gauche and slippery with fairytale fantasy. It also reminded me - especially in the first movement - of a work Klami presumably had not heard: the Walton Violin Concerto.

The Klami has been recorded on CD before by Jennifer Koh on Bis (review). That is an all-Klami disc which gives it an edge. A similar Klami affair can be found on another Finnish label Alba (review). There the soloist is Pekka Kauppinen. It also appears on Finlandia in Klami's own Meet The Composer double in which the violinist is Ilkka Talvi who originally set down that version in 1983 on the cusp between LP and CD. Determined collectors will also know of a very fine Finnish Radio broadcast by Olavi Palli.

The Ondine recording has plenty of pull and punch - witness the finale of the Englund and a subtle poetic distancing heard to best advantage in the innocently singing Klami Adagio and in the wispy bell-sounds as 2:35 in the first movement of the Englund.

The supportive and factually detailed liner-essay is by Kimmo Korhonen and is in English and Finnish.

A vital imagination is evinced by every aspect of this disc.

Rob Barnett

 

 



Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing