Toivo Kuula

Although Toivo Kuula was one of the few pupils taught by Sibelius, he never really had to struggle to emerge from his teacher’s shadow into his own independent light. Kuula originally had wanted to be a violinist and continued to favour the violin even after the playing of this instrument had receded into the background and his activities as a composer had come to occupy the foreground. The Sonata Movement of 1906 already attests to the composer’s remarkable mastery in the design of musical processes. The essential difference between this piece and the Violin Sonata Op. 1 composed during the following year, when Kuula was a student in Helsinki, is that in the latter work his own voice is present from the very beginning.

Finnish composer and conductor Toivo Kuula was a student of Sibelius, and pieces such as the majestic Juhlamarssi (‘Festive March’) share the great master’s national flavour while the descriptive folktales of Satukuvia create their own beautifully romantic atmosphere. Kuula’s piano music is notable for its vast array of colour and variety of style, from the melancholy Surumarssi (‘Funeral March’) (from Six Pieces, Op. 26) to the lighthearted Schottis (‘Scottish Dance’), while countless Finnish couples have been married to the accompaniment of Kuula’s Häämarssi (‘Wedding March’).

On this new Alba album the young and talented Janne Oksanen takes over the entire piano output of Toivo Kuula. To this day Toivo Kuula (1883-1918) stands as one of the most significant Finnish composers. His music is poetic, epic and deep and it showcases a very sophisticated musical taste and tonal language. In his lifetime he was hailed as Finland’s finest composer after Sibelius, who was his mentor and friend. As a whole these 20 pieces portray a versatile palette of different stages of Kuula the composer, from teenage sketches (Air varié) to impressionistic frames from Paris (Satukuva no 2).

Finnish composer and conductor Toivo Kuula was a student of Sibelius, and pieces such as the majestic Juhlamarssi (‘Festive March’) share the great master’s national flavour while the descriptive folktales of Satukuvia create their own beautifully romantic atmosphere. Kuula’s piano music is notable for its vast array of colour and variety of style, from the melancholy Surumarssi (‘Funeral March’) (from Six Pieces, Op. 26) to the lighthearted Schottis (‘Scottish Dance’), while countless Finnish couples have been married to the accompaniment of Kuula’s Häämarssi (‘Wedding March’).

Finnish baritone Arttu Kataja fell in love with Lied music in his first singing lessons at the age of 16 but the idea of his own Lied record was born only after he had worked as a professional for years. The collaboration with pianist Pauliina Tukiainen had already begun years earlier, and the joint record project also felt natural. Both artists have roots and identity in Finland, but both have grown up in the profession and worked in Germany for years. In addition, both Kataja and Tukiainen share a passionate and uncom-promising attitude towards Lied music. In recent years, the couple has given concerts not only in Central Europe but also in Helsinki, where their interpretation of Schubert's Winterreis was a critical success. They will start the 2020/2021 season with a Lied concert at the Berlin State Opera.

This six-disc boxed set offers a broad survey of a hundred years of Finnish chamber music, featuring more than sixty performers and twenty composers – between the late Romanticism of Toivo Kuula’s Piano Trio (1908) and the postmodernism of Veli-Matti Puumala’s String Quartet (1994). Highlights include songs by Aare Merikanto sung by Soile Isokoski, Einojuhani Rautavaara’s Rilke song cycle, sung by Marcus Ullman, and Joonas Kokkonen’s third string quartet, performed by the Sibelius Quartet.

This two-disc set is a superb collection of choral works by 20th and 21st century Scandinavian composers, reaching back to Sibelius and other notables born in the 1800s–Toivo Kuula (1883-1918), Wilhelm Stenhammar (1871-1927), David Wikander (1884-1955), and Hugo Alfvén (1872-1960)–and continuing with composers either still living–Einojuhani Rautavaara (b. 1928), Kurt Nystedt (b. 1915), and Jan Sandström (b. 1954)–or recently deceased–Jørgen Jersild (1913-2004) and Lars Johan Werle (1926-2001). This chronologically wide-ranging program makes for a fascinating variety of material and of choral writing, from the most tonal and hymnlike creations of Sibelius and Kuula to the knottier works of Nystedt, Sandström, and Werle. Along the way we hear a solidly, authoritatively rendered version of Sibelius' SATB setting of his challenging Rakastava, followed by Kuula's rich-textured, harmonically luscious, quintessentially Finnish choruses, most notable being the beautiful Auringon noustessa (Sunrise) and Nuku (Sleep).