munkus's Full Review: Land of a Thousand Lakes - Finnish National Romant...
Ah, Finland. Home of Nokia. I think. And Volvo? No, that's Swedish. Um, actually, gee. I don't know what comes from Finland. Vodka! And it has a Thousand Lakes, apparently. It was with this pioneering spirit of curiousity that I picked up this little disc- Land of a Thousand Lakes for a hit of Finnish orchestral music from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Of the nine works on the disc, many exhibit the interesting Nordic coolness (as in emotionally reserved and distanced, as opposed to icy) but sadly many of the works are forgotten more or less as soon as the next one starts.
It's no surprise that Finland's most famous composer, Jean Sibelius (whose Finlandia is a surprising omission from the CD- but then again, I suppose it would've been a rather painfully cliched choice), writes two of the more memorable pieces on the CD. The hushed and gentle Impromptu is very calming, with almost just the one line of melody unfolding through the strings in the introduction (unfortunately the second half of the piece heads into a rather dull melody enlivened with a considerably more interesting bassline). The opening track is the lively Karelia Overture which is robustly played by the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Tuomas Ollila.
The other most memorable track, and my motivations for purchasing it in the first place, is Uuno Klami's The Cobblers on the Heath Overture an incredibly lively scherzo of a piece with animated orchestration fluttering through all registers and timbres of the symphony orchestra with some catchy melodies in solo violin and clarinets.
The Merikanto Family is represented by two composers, Oskar and his son Aarre. Oskar's Summer Night Waltz is better than the somewhat twee title may imply and is very pleasing in an undemanding light music sort of way (and it appears to be the only piece of Merikanto Senior to be well known). Merikanto Junior's Two Pieces for Orchestra are his contribution. The first, Andante cantabile opens with a rather elegant string canon, lushly played by the Tampere Phil under Ollila. The jolly second piece, Allegro ritmico is half the length and is very folk-idiom influenced to the extent it could almost be a polka.
The biggest flaw with this recording, to the extent that it feels un-finnished (ha ha, oh my sides) are the complete lack of any form of sleeve notes whatsoever. Considering the rarity outside Finland of many of these composers, a little more information would be great especially if you wanted to find out more about them. The lack of sleeve notes gives the whole thing an air of carelessness, and if classical music made money, the impression that Ondine just wanted to earn a buck on the Finnish-CD market as quickly as possible.
The performances come from the Philharmonic Orchestras of Helsinki and Tampere, in addition to the Virtuosi di Kuhmo and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. A variety of conductors hold the batons- Tuomas Ollila, Leif Segerstam, Leonid Grin, Peter Csaba and Sakari Oramo.
As an advertisement for 'Finnish National Romanticism', I'm not sold. The youngest of these composers, Uuno Klami (who died in 1961) is responsible for my favourite work- perhaps an interesting commentary on, if not my subconscious, my musical tastes. Finland has one of the liveliest classical music scenes in the world, yet you wouldn't know it, and alas, this cheaply packaged doesn't do a fantastic job promoting its natural talents.
So I supposed it's recommended, but with reservations. If you have $20 and a hankering for something Finnish, knock yourself out. But if the choice had to be made between, say, a top-notch Sibelius CD and this, the former would win out every time.
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.