Whether he knew it or not Uuno Klami toiled under the reputation
of Sibelius. Among Finnish composers he was hardly alone in
this. The benevolent yet oxygen-sapping shadow from Järvenpää was
cast not only over Sibelius’s own generation but over
succeeding generations including those born after Sibelius’s
death in 1958. The compulsion to create musical works however
can be strong and there is much to be enjoyed and discovered
as well as assessed among those unconquered by its sway.
Klami drank deep draughts of the Finnish nationalist essence
but later mixed it with the voices of Gallic impressionism
and Stravinskian energy from his studies in Paris. His serious
side is represented by the wanly impressionistic Sea Pictures (1930-32),
the vitally potent and imaginative Kalevala Suite (1943),
the smokingly volatile Cheremissian Fantasy for cello
and orchestra (1931), the romantically determined Violin Concerto
(1942) and the bafflingly neglected Psalmus (1936) for
soprano, baritone, choir and orchestra.
He is not neglected on commercial recordings. In the age of
the LP Fennica, Finnlevy and Finlandia paid him attention.
However as with other neglected composers the entry of the
CD onto the world stage in 1983 was the cue for a substantial
jolt of new recording ventures. Klami benefited, as did many
others, with reissues and fresh recording projects. The Warner-Finlandia
combine gave us an extremely valuable Klami compendium (deleted
and now fetching between £30 and £40 on Amazon)
in their Meet
the Composer series as well as the world premiere
recording of Psalmus on FACD369 - the latter remaining
deleted for years for reasons beyond understanding. Ondine,
Bis and Naxos (listed below) have also waded in to provide
coverage of the vast bulk of the orchestral music.
Alba stand in the shadow of Ondine and Warner-Finlandia. Alba’s
catalogue however holds its own peculiar treasures including
the complete
Madetoja orchestral works, including the grand ballet Okon
Fuoko and the complete
piano solos. Let alone music by Tiensuu, Tuukkanen, Hämeenniemi, Kreek, Kokkonen
and Merilainen. Their complete Tubin
symphonies are as conducted by Arvo Volmer who through ABC
Classics is making his mark on the international scene.
A full index of reviews of their recordings can be found here.
The present three discs have until now passed us by.
The Kymi - Scenes disc is an all-Klami affair. Of the
three it’s the shortest in playing time but then all
three are within hailing distance of an hour. The Violin Concerto
dates from 1943 but was lost and the work rewritten in 1954.
Although the original score was found in 1957 the rewrite is
what we hear from Pekka Kauppinen. It’s a lovely work
which will appeal to you if you enjoy the first concertos of
Szymanowski and Prokofiev. You will also need to be able to
live with pages that in their contours inevitably recall the
Sibelius concerto and the idyllic sense of Slavonic nocturnals
and perfumed air. The finale is more urgent, zany and even
manic - a sort of moto perpetuo without quite fitting
the definition. It ends on a very cleever downbeat pizzicato.
The concerto lasts for more than half the duration of the CD.
I recall hearing Jennifer Koh’s version on Bis some years
ago and my recollection is that Koh’s tone is more full-lipped;
I would need to get hold of a copy to check. Kauppinen is in
any event a most touching and virtuosic guide. The Suite for
String Orchestra (1937) is the same undemanding ‘pleasantrie’ that
appears on Alba ABCD 242 recalling Rakastava at one
moment and Sibelius’s more intense works the next - for
example in the stormy flighted final Allegro vivo. The
pellucidly scored Sérénades joyeuses is
unmistakably influenced by neo-classical Stravinsky and the
absurdist fantasies of Prokofiev’s Love of Three Oranges.
As ever with Klami the four miniature movements are wonderfully
concise and inspiration is not overstretched. Use of sharply
etched percussion, hieratic trombone, edgily rhythmic cells
and woodwind coloration make this a very distinctive mix. Finally
we get the five movements of Scenes from a Puppet Show have
the sharply defined horizon of de Falla’s Harpsichord
Concerto softened by the lacy-fragile and slightly melancholy
sound of Ravel’s Ma Mère l’Oye. Even
the titles hint at the connection: The Chinese Merchant and Prinsessa
Ruusunen - La belle au bois dormant. The final Brave
General is a cheeky-cheery impudent fellow whose woodwind
solo march suggest a jaunty CO of the bedroom playbox.
Rhapsodie starts with the brevity that is the Intermezzo.
It’s a chucklingly industrious folk-accented movement
for cor anglais and orchestra with many modest limpid Sibelian
references coloured by a touch of Rimsky. The score is laid
out on an egalitarian basis with many other solo woodwind voices
joining the cor anglais. The booklet notes by Hannele Dolk
tell us that it is based on the first movement of his Psalmus written
in 1936. In 1945 he wrote the incidental music for the Marin
Drzic play, The Prodigal Son, at the Finnish National
Theatre. It’s a light sequence as befits a comedy. The
Prelude to Act I is a busy little march lit by racing and glinting
orchestral piano entwined with chortling woodwind. It sounds
rather like a Nordic rumba as if something from 1920s Milhaud
or Ibert. Again this would be ideal Classic FM material. The
great baritone Hynninen (b. 1941) sings the two Madrigali and
one Serenaadi which are grouped around the three orchestral
preludes. These are light and winning serenades - the Nordic
equivalent of Neapolitan romances with a typical dash of sun,
beauty, sadness or regret. That orchestral piano again makes
its presence felt in the warmly pensive Prelude to Act II.
It cleverly uses the material of the first Prelude but at a
honey-slow pace. The final Prelude is more urgent with that
ringing orchestral piano and soloistic woodwind pressing forward
aided by chugging string ostinatos.
Having written two ambitious
symphonies - recorded on Ondine - Klami wanted in 1928-29 to
write something in a simpler less heated idiom. Writing in
Vienna and dedicating the work to Toivo Haapanen he produced
the Symphonie Enfantine - also recorded on Bis. In its
feel it’s more of a fantasy suite than a symphony. The
music has a gentle oneiric lilt yet for all the aspiration
to simplicity a complexity that mixes birdsong, Ravel-like
warmth and vernal magic irradiates these pages until we get
to the wild and woolly finale which steps out from the pages
of Firebird Stravinsky. Mix in some urgent Sibelian
motor rhythms, Iberian hints and a Viennese dream waltz and
there you have it. Eero Kesti is viola principal of the Kymi
Sinfonietta. His Spring is a contemplative fantasy for
orchestra which rises to a slow majesty at 4:00. Completely
tonal - as with all the works here - you will certainly enjoy
this if you enjoy the even more urgent Bridge’s Enter
Spring and Hadley’s The Trees so High. Kuula
was killed in a shooting accident in 1918. His inspiration
for composition was Selim Palmgren. Like his teacher, Sibelius,
Kuula spent time in Italy but then extended his studies in
Leipzig and Paris. Songs figure large in his output possible
because his wife was a singer. These seven songs are quite
varied from the lively Tuoltapa (tr. 13), to the troika-lively Hai
pois (tr. 17) to the slow blooming tragedy of Haultalan
Heikki (tr. 14) to the stormy Tuuli se taivutti (tr.
15) and the final auburn-toned romance of Luulahan (tr.
18). The orchestral arrangements for Finnish Radio are by the
conductor-composer Nils-Erik Fougstedt (1910-1961) a stalwart
of the national radio station YLE, a composer in his own right
(complete songs for mixed choir a cappella on BIS-CD-721) and
a major figure on the Scandinavian musical scene. In 1957 he
conducted the premiere of Atterburg’s Visionaria symphony
(No.9) in Helsinki and recorded for Fennica Vaino Raitio’s
Scherzo: Felis Domestica and Klami’s Rural
Shoemakers overture. His own orchestral works - surely
worth recording? - include Angoscia (1954), the Trittico
sinfonico (1958) (seemingly the first twelve-tone Finnish
orchestral work) and Aurea dicta (1959). These Kuula-Fougstedt
songs bring to an end a delightful light-ish candy assortment.
There’s not a touch of sourness anywhere yet the sugar
content is well judged and will not rot your musical appreciation.
The insert booklet gives the sung Finnish words and
English
translations.
Valoa offers only one work by Klami. A handful of the
orchestral works of Robert Kajanus have had their own CD on
BIS-CD-1223 (see review). The collection included his Aino
symphony which has also appeared in a different performance
on Ondine.
Conductor-composer
Kajanus’s Suite for Strings is a pleasant sentimental
trippingly light confection - a little like Elgar with only
the lightest suggestion of Northern climes. The finale has
a trotting freedom which sounds a little like Sibelius’s Karelia
Suite. The Hindemith Mourning Music is better known
under its German title: Trauermusik. How it was written
at extraordinarily short notice for the BBC to mark the death
of King George V in 1936 is well enough known. Ulla Soinne
plays with a captivatingly oleaginous tone which leans away
from the instrument’s traditional slender hoarseness.
It would be good to hear her in the even finer Schwanendreher
Concerto. I was most impressed. In fact this is the finest
recording I have ever heard of Trauermusik. Hindemithians
must not overlook this. Ilkka Kuusisto studied organ at the
Sibelius Academy in his birth city of Helsinki. There he also
worked with composition professors Aare Merikanto and Nils-Erik
Fougstedt. There were to be further studies in the USA, Germany
and Austria. He became conductor at the Helsinki City Theatre
in the 1960s and 1970s and did a three year stint as head of
the Klemetti Institute from 1969. He has written operas and
musicals: Muumiooppera (1974); Mieben kylkiluu (1977); Sota
valosta (1980); Jääikäri Stabl (1981)
and Pierrot tai yon salaisuudet (1991). The musicals
include Lumikuningatar (1979) and Robin Hood
(1987). There were a few chamber works but usually for unconventional
combinations of instruments. His vocal works numbered Three
Chinese Songs for Soprano, Flute, and Piano (1956), Daybreak
- a cantata for soli, Youth Chorus, and Organ (1957) and Crucifixus for
Baritone and String Quartet (1959). Kuusisto’s Divertimento is
a lovely gentle subtle piece for strings: nostalgic, clever,
catchy and finely emotional with touches of Frank Bridge, Dag
Wirén and Sibelius’s Rakastava but so much
more. It’s a complete winner and again is one of those
pieces that needs to be picked up by Classic FM. Not to be
missed, believe me. Pasi Piispanen’s elusively sentimental
songs are here sung by Reijo Mustakallio (baritone). They represent
a sort of approximation of the French chansonnier’s work.
The most accomplished of them is the wonderfully counterpointed Valo (Light).
These songs are more light than gravely classical but they
are clearly the work of a craftsman of the emotions. Uuno Klami
is represented by his Suite for String Orchestra. Its
four short movements touch in the emotions with watercolour
impressions yet without the colours running: It’s related
to Rakastava but with a trace-infusion of mocha. The Allegro
vivo has a significant Sibelian bustle. The disc is nicely
recorded and the playing by the Tapiola Youth Strings wants
nothing in accomplishment and emotion.
There you have it: the Finnish composer Uuno Klami - a captivating
composer whose tonal-nationalist-impressionistic style moved
later in life a little towards the neo-classical. Do not neglect
these indispensable Alba discs for your Klami collection.
Rob Barnett
Klami
on Chandos
CHAN 10427 X Karelian Rhapsody / Kalevala Suite / Sea Pictures;
Iceland Symphony Orchestra/Petri Sakari
Klami on BIS
BIS-CD-656 Lemminkainen's Island Adventures / Song of Lake
Kuujarvi / Pyorteita (Whirls), Ballet Suite Nos. 1 & 2.
Ruuttunen, Esa, baritone; Lahti Symphony Orchestra/Vanska,
Osmo
BIS-CD-676 Kalevala Suite / The Cobblers on the Heath Overture
/ Tema con 7 variazioni e coda, Op. 44 (Theme with Seven
Variations and Coda; Lahti Symphony Orchestra/Vanska, Osmo
BIS-CD-696 Pyörteitä (Whirls): Act 1 (Orchestrated
by Kalevi Aho) / Violin Concerto / Suomenlinna Overture - Jennifer
Koh violin; Lahti Symphony Orchestra/Osmo Vänskä
BIS-CD-806 Symphonie enfantine / Suite for Strings / Hommage à Haendel
/ Suite for Small Orch - Timo Koskinen (piano)/Jean-Jacques
Kantorow/Tapiola Sinfonietta
Klami on Naxos
8.553757 Suomenlinna Overture / Kalevala Suite / Lemminkainen's
Adventures on the Island of Saari / Sea Pictures - Turku
Philharmonic Orchestra/Panula, Jorma
Klami on Ondine
ODE854-2 Symphony No. 1 / King Lear Tampere; Philharmonic
Orchestra/Ollila-Hannikainen, Tuomas
ODE858-2 Symphony No. 2 / Symphonie Enfantine; Tampere Philharmonic
Orchestra/Ollila-Hannikainen, Tuomas
ODE859-2 Lemminkainen's Adventures on an Island / The Cobblers
on the Heath / Karelian Rhapsody / A Karelian Market / In
the Belly of Viipunen; Petri Lindroos; Polytech Male Choir;
Finnish
Radio Symphony Orchestra/Sakari Oramo
Pekka Kauppinen (violin) 
