Kärki Konsertissa Panu Savolainen, Jaakko Kuusisto And Helsingin Kaupunginorkesteri

Fascinating performers and audiences alike with their architectural perfection as well as their emotional range, these are works that lend themselves to very different interpretations, and on this recording it is the Bach of Finnish violinist Jaakko Kuusisto we hear. Himself a composer – as well as violinist and conductor – Kuusisto remembers beginning to study individual movements from the set at the age of ten. The music has been with him ever since, and to him ‘no other works for the violin provide a higher challenge or greater beauty’.

Completed in the spring of 1893, Järnefelt’s Serenade was composed in Paris, and the French influence – especially that of his teacher Massenet – can be clearly heard. Two years later, in the Symphonic Fantasy, composed after a momentous visit to Bayreuth, the influences are rather Wagnerian, and especially obvious in the central slow section with its clear reminiscences of Parsifal. The programme closes with Berceuse for violin and orchestra. The piece is a beautifully atmospheric miniature which has found a place in concerts of lighter music all over the world.

Jaakko Kuusisto is one of Finlands most versatile musicians, a quality demonstrated by his rich discography on BIS in which he appears as violinist (in chamber music, as soloist and as concertmaster), conductor, arranger and composer. In the latter capacity, he made his mark on disc in 2013, with the release of his violin concerto (on BIS-2020) a work which received great acclaim in international media, including American Record Guide.

Ilkka Kuusisto began his career as a jazz pianist at the age of 15, and has since been active in a number of fields, including the theatre, as an organist, a choral conductor and as chief executive of the Finnish National Opera. As a composer he is highly eclectic. Having composed several operas, Kuusisto was invited by the conductor Osmo Vänskä to write a symphony for the Lahti Symphony Orchestra – a work which opens this disc.

Fascinating performers and audiences alike with their architectural perfection as well as their emotional range, these are works that lend themselves to very different interpretations, and on this recording it is the Bach of Finnish violinist Jaakko Kuusisto we hear. Himself a composer – as well as violinist and conductor – Kuusisto remembers beginning to study individual movements from the set at the age of ten. The music has been with him ever since, and to him ‘no other works for the violin provide a higher challenge or greater beauty’.