Stories by

Kimmo Hakola writes about three opera performances at the Helsinki Festival 2015 and analyses the current state of the opera in Finland.

"Esko Jarvela and Tero Hyvaluoma are definitely among the best fiddlers of their generation in Finland (both born at the beginning of the 1980s). Their playing style has the distinctive folk music phrasing and swing, but they seem to be at ease with almost any musical genre. When going solo, they prove themselves talented composers as well...

With the works he wrote in the 1920s Aarre Merikanto (1893-1958) together with Ernest Pingoud and Väinö Raitio, planted the seed of modernism in Finnish music. The seed germinated in spite of adverse cultural conditions at the time, but only later generations were to reap the harvest.

"Jaakko Eino Kalevi succeeds in building a semi-surreal parallel world, a stress-free zone in which secular troubles turn into mojitos."

In the summer 2019, the Kuhmo Chamber Music festival celebrates its 50th anniversary. To congratulate the one-of-a-kind festival, FMQ re-publishes Anu Karlson's article exploring the festival, its history and the"Kuhmo spirit". The article was first published in FMQ 2/1996.

"Kullervo is a five-movement composition which depicts the main events from the (Kalevala) hero's life. The depiction is so vivid and so completely Finnish that at every point the work overflows with the grave and melancholy spirit of old Finland. We must marvel at the fact that Mr Sibelius has kept to the same very Finnish style from beginning to end of his work. "

Viitasaari was once again the crossroads for different generations of composers: from the “dinosaurs” Brian Ferneyhough and Harrison Birtwistle to recent breakthroughs such as Mark André and Pierluigi Billone, to name just a few, along with the Finnish Lauri Supponen and Heinz-Juhani Hofmann.

“If there is much room around a composer’s ‘self’ both in nature and culture, discreteness and the experience of space can probably be heard in her or his music.”

"The album as a whole is moving; nostalgia in its many forms is woven into the music, and longing is expressed through carefully selected instrumental combinations."