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Sat, 21 Aug 1999 18:42:21 +0200 |
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Richard Putter <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>I heard a piece over the radio this morning by Uuno Klami -- a composer I
>had never heard of before. He's Finnish and I was able to find out from
>the radio station that the piece was called "Sea Pictures" and was on a
>Chandos disk. I wasn't really listening that closely, but from what I
>heard, the music was worth paying greater attention to. Does anyone know
>anything more about this composer and any other CDs available out there?
Uuno Klami (1900-1961) who won reputation already in the early 20ies
and offered an alternative to the usual Finnish nationalromantic, which
occured with, and in the wake of, Sibelius. He had a hard childhood; his
mother died at the age of 3 (Uunos age) and his father at the age of 16
(also Uunos age), and he could almost not comlpete his studies at the
conservatory of Helsinki as he was lacking money. With a stipend from the
conservatory he could in 1925 go to Paris, where he met Florent Schmitt and
Maurice Ravel, from which an influence can be heard in his orchestrations.
His music is a mixture of the Finnish nationalism and the more
international sound. An interesting work is "Karjalainen Rapsodia", where
Klami develops a Finnish theme in a for his time completely new way. His
most important work is the "Kalevala-Sarja", a work based on the Finnish
national epos, and which he worked with in 10 years.
The ouverture Soumenlinna (Sveaborg) is an example on in which style Kalmi
was most successful; a grand pompous thing. He composed the piece in 1940,
but the ouverture disappeared during the caos which followed upon the WWII,
and in 1944 Klami had to write down the piece once again. But again; this
is the sort of work in which Klami is at his best; a grand sound to a
Ravelian orchestration, that also reminds about Strawinsky. IMO the man
didn't know how to write slow and calm movements.
There is a budget priced CD on Finnish NAXOS 8.553757F whcih contains the
works Suomenlinna-alkusiotto, Kalevala-sarja, Merikuvia and Lemminkaeisen
seikkailut Saaressa. What names! Tolkien may flatter in his tomb!
Andreas von Doebeln
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