Peat, Smoke and Seaweed Storm
Barlinnie Nine (1999) [11:33]
Soliloque 2: La tornade (2012) [7:37]
Rautasade Iron Rain (2008) [15:32]
Aflao Highway (2011) [12:52]
Ardbeg (The Ultimate Piece for Orchestra) (2003) [17:04]
Jukka Harhu (french horn) (Soliloque 2)
Matilda Kärkkäinen (piano) (Aflao Highway)
Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra/Sakari Oramo (Barlinnie Nine); Dima Slobodeniouk (Ardbeg)
rec. Finlandia Hall, Helsinki, 20 April 2005 (Barlinnie Nine), 15 October 2008 (Rautasade), Kulttuuritalo, Helsinki, 28-29 April 2011 (Ardbeg), YLE M Finnish Broadcasting Company, Helsinki, 21 November 2012 (Aflao Highway), Sipoo Old Church, 30 November 2012 (Soliloque 2)
ALBA ABCD 367 [65:10]
You may have heard of Finnish composer Osmo Tapio Räihälä
though another CD release, Rock Painting from 2006 (see review),
but while his is yet to become a household name the substance and quality
of the music on Peat, Smoke and Seaweed Storm will do his reputation
no harm indeed.
Barlinnie Nine is apparently Räihälä’s best
known work: a musical portrait of footballer Duncan Ferguson, subtitled
amusingly by the composer as an “Apotheosis of Underachievement”.
As is often the case such subtexts are impossible to divine from a blind
audition, and impressions of the work are of something theatrical –
indeed, something which might be an orchestral distillation of an opera.
There are some moments of humour, thematic interpolations and colorful
corners of romantic lament and dolorous misfortune, but for the most part
the work is intense and imaginatively stimulating – you might almost
say cinematic, in a manner not entirely dissimilar to something by Malcolm
Arnold.
Soliloque 2: La tornade is a striking solo for french horn, and
one of six pieces which form a Soliloque Suite. Aside from not
inconsiderable technical demands this is a piece with plenty of fine musical
content, exploration of contrasting timbres from the instrument, and intriguing
moments of rumination and dramatic extroversion.
Rautasade or “Iron Rain” is described as “not
a story, but a painting” by the composer, who leaves as much as
possible to the imagination. The subtitle may or may not refer to ‘time’
as the space our thoughts might inhabit as we “float from somewhere
to elsewhere in this work”. The orchestration does indeed often
suggest landscape or seascape, horizons and varying textures of terrain.
As with the other works in this release there is a sense of drama which
is barely suppressed, and which often explodes energetically with a stack
of percussion and brass to heighten the effect. Let your imagination run
riot – you’ll get wet and maybe a bit scared, but the ride
is worth it.
Aflau Highway for piano solo makes references to bumper stickers
spotted while on a journey from Accra to Aflau. While the three movements
of the piece are by no means Ghanian in flavour and not intended to be
descriptive, the composer does add that the spirit of the music “is
airy, light, windy, stagnant – just like the glowingly hot air that
flows above the cracked asphalt somewhere near the Gulf of Guinea.”
Energy and atmosphere contrast in this piece, and while everything is
– arguably – abstract, I can’t escape Räihälä’s
signature sense of eventful narrative.
The final work is Ardbeg (The Ultimate Piece for Orchestra),
another ‘sound painting’ which takes its inspiration from
the island of Islay, where the malt whisky Ardbeg is made. The work acknowledges
other composers to whom the landscapes of the British Isles was a source
of inspiration, and while the music is in no way a pastiche there are
unmistakable textures and gestures – Atlantic waves crashing through
cymbals, undulating seas, craggy rocks and the grand scale of moorland
and mountains.
All of the performances and recordings on this release are of good quality,
and this is a contemporary musical voice whose dramatic sound-world is
well worth exploring.
Dominy Clements
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