UUNO KLAMI

This disc, which includes Klami’s best-known work the Kalevala Suite, is welcomed back to the catalogue and made available at mid-price for the first time.

Petri Sakari is a well-known supporter of Scandinavian music.

The works of Uuno Klami form one of the high points in the post-Sibelius history of Finnish orchestral music. Having studied in Paris he assimilated the strongest stylistic influences from Ravel, Stravinsky and the new Spanish composers becoming a master of orchestral colour with endless imaginative and inspired passages.

The Karelian Rhapsody, one of the composer’s most performed works, is imbued with Finnish folk music heritage but within wider context. Kalevala Suite took 14 years to compose and is considered his most important work. Initially planned as a ballet score, it is a work that most evidently demonstrates Klami’s debt to Stravinsky, whilst also recalling Sibelius through its orchestration and thematic treatment. The scoring is marked by transparency, a sense of colour and virtuoso writing, and Klami’s excellent orchestral technique enabled him to throw new light on national themes and folk melodies that many earlier composers had used less convincingly.

This collection is performed idiomatically by the Iceland Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Petri Sakari, and makes a welcome return to the catalogue.

This CD is also released as MP3.

Uuno Klami’s Kalevala Suite has just been reissued by Chandos along with the marvellous tone-poem cycle Sea Pictures (1930-32) in well paced and played performances from the Iceland Symphony Orchestra conducted by Petri Sakari. Ravelian impressionism is the prevailing idiom but there are touches of early Stravinsky too, and Sibelius, whose influence Klami so desperately tried to shake off. The Karelian Rhapsody (1927) sounds as if Alfven were strolling through Petrushka’s Shrovetide Fair, but in all these works Klami made the stylistic incongruities work. Exciting orchestration too,caught typically brilliant sound.
Maestro Sakari (yet another of that seemingly endless succession of top-notch Finnish conductors) approaches all three works with passionate conviction; the Icelanders play them with ardour and coruscating tone; Chandos captures their performances in vivid sound.
The performances under Petri Sakari are very good indeed, and the recording has a good perspective and a wide dynamic range.


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