Finland

Let’s return to one of the great maxims of not just contemporary but all music: size isn’t important. In the case of Norway’s Only Connect festival, its short, 2½-day duration belied the fact that its content was highly concentrated. As such, one event started to blur into the next, into …

One of the most fascinating events at this year’s Musica Nova festival was LOKS – four concerts at once. Not so much a performance as a film juxtaposing and compositing four separate performances, it featured music by four composers whose initials form the title: Lauri Supponen, Oene val Geel, Krists …

Some of the most memorable performances at this year’s Musica Nova festival were of vocal works. The concert given by the Vicentino Singers was powerful not simply because of the abilities of the singers, but due to their size. Being a sextet, the level of intimacy they established was considerable; …

Being the risky, aspiringly cutting edge things that they are, contemporary music festivals always tend to be a bit hit and miss. Very little i heard at Musica Nova 2025 fell into the latter category, but there were a few pieces that slipped through the quality net, being memorable for …

Especially prominent at this year’s Musica Nova festival was the lavish organ in Helsinki’s Musiikkitalo concert hall, unveiled at the start of 2024. The largest modern concert hall organ in the world, its construction was partly made possible by one of Finland’s greatest composers, the late Kaija Saariaho, who in …

i’ve commented before on my general disinterest, and usual disregard, for music festival themes. Musica Nova, Helsinki’s biennial new music extravaganza, opted for ‘together’ as its theme this year, and while that word is sufficiently vague as to have almost no meaning, there were numerous times when that word insinuated …

Continuing my short survey of recent portrait discs, a different kind of surprise came from Midnight Sun Variations, a collection of orchestral works by Finnish composer Outi Tarkiainen. The world première of Midnight Sun Variations, performed at the 2019 Proms by the BBC Philharmonic conducted by John Storgårds, left me …

Today’s Advent Calendar piece, Static by Finnish composer Otto Iivari, is technically an audiovisual work. On the two occasions i experienced it, the electronics were presented in conjunction with a tiny TV on a table, displaying a mixture of static and several clear bands that made for a curious relationship …

6 December is Finland’s Independence Day, so today’s Advent Calendar piece is by Finnish composer Lauri Supponen. Continuo (which i briefly discussed earlier this year) is a short ensemble work, composed in 2021, that’s rooted in much earlier music, Frescobaldi’s Recercar con obligo di cantare la quinta parte senza toccarla. …

At the more serious end of the expressive spectrum, there was a lot to take in during my long weekend at this year’s HCMF. It was disappointing to witness, in Ann Cleare‘s TERRARIUM, yet another example of that which has become so prevalent at HCMF in recent years, a multimedia …

i want to pay a brief tribute to Finnish conductor and composer Leif Segerstam, who died yesterday at the age of 80. As i noted a few years ago, i’m not a conductor fanboy, but Segerstam was one of the few who consistently got me excited every time he was …

It was only a few weeks ago that i was exploring music that took its inspirational origin from grandparental reminiscences. Then, the subject matter was dead fishermen, whereas this time it’s … cows. That might not seem a particularly promising starting point for a new song cycle, and yet Laulut …

Several events that i’d had high hopes for at this year’s World New Music Days turned out to be disappointingly underwhelming. Among them was the concert given by Danish choir ARS NOVA which, overall, featured surprisingly unadventurous repertoire, mostly standard text settings with almost nothing really exploring the voice as …

Three years ago, sitting down to watch the inaugural Baltic Music Days – an entirely online event, due to the ongoing effects of COVID – i regularly found myself wondering to what extent “Baltic music” was a phrase that held any particular meaning. i came away on that occasion feeling …

Perhaps the most compelling example of the kind of disorientation that border states can engender came in the concert given by Polish ensemble Spółdzielnia Muzyczna, appropriately titled ‘The Borders of Identity’. Here, more than anywhere else during AFEKT 2023, was a concert where none of the five works on the …

Borders are places of confusion, uncertainty and, often, danger, and in this context concerts such as the ones previously discussed at AFEKT 2023 – where most works had strong similarities while one or two were markedly different – raised related questions. Is such similarity attractive and important because it suggests …

Perhaps there’s never been a more appropriate time for a music festival to take as its theme, “Border State”. Borders seem more prominent in world events than ever: we’ve seen them being viciously violated, vigorously reinforced, valiantly defended. Conflicts continue to rage, and the resultant feeling is one of separation …

i was deeply saddened recently to hear about the death, on 2 June, of Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho. In the days since then, i’ve been reflecting on my relationship with her music, which i’ve come to realise is similar to my relationship with Takemitsu’s music. Every time i encounter her …

Today is Finnish Independence Day – Hyvää Itsenäisyyspäivää! – and to mark the occasion, behind today’s Advent Calendar door is a short work by Pekka Jalkanen. Kuulen lumen tulon (I hear snow coming) is the first part of Jalkanen’s 2017 triptych November, the three movements of which are for one, two …

Three years ago, i featured in my ‘Free internet music’ series a new release from Finnish musician Lassi Nikko, aka Brothomstates, who had surprised everyone at the end of 2017 by suddenly putting out a new 13-minute track after over a decade and a half of silence. In the final …