Olli Hirvonen – Kielo

Mustonen's performing/recording career contains many Beethoven performances and he is always very thoughtful, fluid and attuned to Beethoven's many moods and structural depth. Some other of his recordings (e.g., his Diabelli Variations) have moments of quirkiness, but this recording is more direct and impressive. One of my favorite items on it is his Eroica Variation performance. It is one of the finest I know of, very few others deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence as Glen Gould's - but this (rather different) one does.

Composing has always formed an integral part of the artistic life of pianist-conductor Olli Mustonen (b. 1967) and he first emerged as a symphonist in the early 2010s. This album by the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra with Olli Mustonen conducting contains two of his most latest symphonies, both dramatic works firmly rooted and continuing the tradition of the great classical composers. Seeking inspiration from multiple sources, the theme of Mustonen’s 2nd Symphony, ‘Johannes Angelos’ (2013), is the ancient city of Constantinople and its mysticism.

Prokofiev arranged excerpts from his ballet Cinderella for solo piano as three separate suites: the Three Pieces Op. 95, Ten Pieces Op. 97, and Six Pieces Op. 102. Here Olli Mustonen fashions his own extended suite that starts with Op. 95 intact, continues with Op. 97 reordered minus one piece, and concludes with three of the Op. 102 selections. In the main, Mustonen’s amazingly worked-out pianism toes the fine line between brilliant individuality and irritating self-absorption. In Op. 97, for instance, the pianist brings remarkable crispness and élan to the frolicking triplet figurations throughout Fairy Spring and the Grasshoppers and Dragon Flies, and rubs our noses in the Autumn Fairy’s dissonant accents. At times, however, interpretive tics transform the music’s rhythmic profile and thematic resourcefulness into mannered mush. The Op. 95 Pavane is a case in point.

Composing has always formed an integral part of the artistic life of pianist-conductor Olli Mustonen (b. 1967) and he first emerged as a symphonist in the early 2010s. This album by the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra with Olli Mustonen conducting contains two of his most latest symphonies, both dramatic works firmly rooted and continuing the tradition of the great classical composers. Seeking inspiration from multiple sources, the theme of Mustonen’s 2nd Symphony, ‘Johannes Angelos’ (2013), is the ancient city of Constantinople and its mysticism. Mustonen’s 3rd Symphony, ‘Taivaanvalot’ (Heavenly Lights) (2020) is based on a section in the Finnish national epic Kalevala and inspired by the cosmic and shamanistic elements in Finnish mythology. In this recording, the solo part is being sung by internationally acclaimed tenor Ian Bostridge.

The Czech Bohuslav Martinů and the Finn Einojuhani Rautavaara may not seem to have much in common, but both have adopted an attitude free of musical puritanism, constantly finding new sources of inspiration which they explored without taboos. Explaining the heterogeneity of his musical language over the years, Rautavaara stated that, as a Finn, he stands ‘between East and West, between the tundra and Europe, between Lutheran and Orthodox faith’. Premiered in 1999, his Piano Concerto No. 3 has managed to join the small group of late twentieth-century concertos that are now part of the repertoire. Its subtitle, ‘Gift of Dreams’, seems to describe perfectly the character of the music in the first two movements, before a finale that exhibits a more driven, anxious manner.

This release is an important milestone in the collaboration between the Finnish composer and pianist Olli Mustonen and the Norwegian string quartet Engegård Quartet.

As Bohuslav Martinu gradually becomes better known in the west, his appealing chamber music is increasingly being performed and recorded, as it should be. This SACD of the three cello sonatas joins a respectable number of recordings that are available, though these exceptional performances by Steven Isserlis and Olli Mustonen are sure to give this album a higher profile in the marketplace.

This is the second and final disc in a cycle of Sergei Prokofiev’s piano concertos with pianist Olli Mustonen and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hannu Lintu. Of the first volume, Gramophone wrote: 'How many times have I regretted a shortage of fantasy, flair and fairy-tale imagination in recordings of the Prokofiev piano concertos? Well, here is a disc that takes all those qualities to the top'.

With his sweet, subtly varied tone, lightly brushed bowing and imaginative phrasing, Kuusisto is vividly reponsive to the dancing playfulness of the Allegros and that uniquely Mozartian mixture of innocence and sensuous yearning in the slow movements. Tempi are fleet and buoyant yet never driven. (…) These performances, zestfully accompanied and warmly recorded, capture the poetry, excitement and coltish energy of these miraculous fruits of Mozart's teen years.