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Mon, 23 Aug 1999 11:01:06 +0200 |
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Scott Morrison inquired on Aarre Merikanto:
>Can anyone describe his music for me? I know there is a recording of his
>opera, 'Juha', with Jorma Hynninen (one of my favorite singers), but I've
>not heard this, or any other of Merikanto's music.
Well I can not be of much help here as I only know the 2xCD in Finlandias
*meet the composer* series on Merikanto (1893-1958). By the way for
anybody interested in Finish music these issues are a real bargain! For
half the price of a *normal* CD you get 2 tightly filled CDs with usually
excellent performances! The Merikanto discs feature 2 violin concertos
and a couple of shorter orchestral works. Merikantos early works (from
the twenties) are in a kind of modernist/impressionist style (like the
2nd violin concerto on this recording). In later works he wrote in a more
conservative neo-classical style. In my opinion this is well crafted and
orchestrated music, harmonic and colourful but somehow missing something
particular that would raise it out of the mass of similar *good* music from
the first half of this century (in short: good but not great!). There
are a couple of CDs with his music on the Ondine label which might be
interesting to check out!
Achim Breiling
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