Ilkka KUUSISTO (b. 1933)
Symphony No.1 (1998) [34:10]
Concertino improvvisando for violin and small orchestra (2006) [20:43]
Kun talo alkaa soida (When the house begins to resound) – cantata for baritone and orchestra, (1992) [18:29]
Pekka Kuusisto (violin)
Jorma Hynninen (baritone)
Lahti Symphony Orchestra/Jaakko Kuusisto
rec. Jan, Sept 2010, Sibelius Hall, Lahti, Finland
BIS BIS-CD-1847 [74:38]
The Finnish composer, Ilkka Kuusisto is the father of Jaakko Kuusisto and Pekka Kuusisto, both of whom appear in this disc’s line-up. All three are pictured on the booklet cover. Jaakko is a composer in his own right; his violin concerto has been recorded by BIS. Pekka is a violinist and has recorded widely. For me, his name registers as the soloist in Sibelius’s Six Humoresques.
Sources indicate that Ilkka took his first steps in the profession as a jazz pianist. His professional life has taken him into opera writing - several operas including one about the Moomintrolls - and opera house administration.
The four-movement Symphony is, like the other two works, a comparatively recent production. It was written for the orchestra heard on this disc at the invitation of Osmo Vänskä (who is also its dedicatee). Its Andantino voices summer with a warm blooming caress and garlanding bird-song. At various points it seems to owe some little debt to Rautavaara’s Cantus Arcticus. There are some grandly luxuriating climaxes, including the one around 3:40. More birdsong confidence can be found in the Marcia which mixes Shostakovich jackanapes with striding woodwind. The Rubato steadies the pace yet widens the gait. Even so there is room for emotion and delicacy: listen to that harp ostinato. The final Allegro has a Bernstein-like St Vitus Dance allied with scorching brass, wing-heeled speed and gauntly grand Sibelian climactics. The composer reports that the symphony was written in ‘a state of summer enchantment’. Kuusisto’s unwritten message is that this Symphony is intended as a major statement.
The short three movement Concertino improvvisando for violin and chamber orchestra owes complicated fealty to two streams: pastoral ecstasy and popular music. The middle movement bears the title “slow and sweet” and sweetness is an apt reference for all the movements. It’s close to a trade-off between Menuhin/Grappelli¸ jazziness and 1970s film music … none the worse for that. The notes indicate that the score accommodates improvisation. The whole thing is certainly easy on the ear yet does not collapse flat in a lake of saccharine. Kuusisto finds a sustaining rigour in heightened ecstatic expression and writing that would not be out of place in a score by Nikolai Kapustin. (Which reminds me: when is some label going to give us a complete edition of the six piano concertos?) We are told, in the notes, that each movement is rooted in a tradition from a different continent. This suggests a link with Alan Bush or Ronald Stevenson, but what we hear is a world away from them - relaxed and relaxing yet with a musical spine.
Another landmark figure, Jorma Hynninen, heads up the last piece - a cantata for baritone and orchestra. The orchestration is silkily delicate and Hynninen is heroically defiant, barkingly orated and grouchily emphatic. There’s a prominent place for a pungently evocative accordion. The admirably sung Finnish texts are from the Bible, the Kalevala and Schopenhauer. These are set out side-by-side in the booklet with an English translation.
The disc is well filled and we have the benefit of the composer’s son conducting. A further strength, in the case of the Concerto, is the playing of another member of the next generation of the Kuusisto family.
The generously proportioned liner-notes are by Jarmo Papinniemi.
Rob Barnett
