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The year 2020 marks the 35th anniversary of the publication of the very first issue of the Finnish Music Quarterly. We are now publishing a digital facsimile of that first issue.

As the year closes, we here at FMQ wish to raise certain issues that have become important, or increasingly important, in this extraordinary year. All of them ultimately lead to the same key question that is on the minds of everyone in the music community: how can we best secure the future of music after the present crisis? What are the things that we should focus on?

"The performances are lively and delicate throughout, resulting in an elegant and enjoyable whole."

"Generally speaking, exploratory modernist choral music is taxing to both perform and listen to, but this disc is an exception. Both Antti Auvinen and Sampo Haapamäki take the listener on a roller-coaster ride."

"Mäntyjärvi makes such full use of the potential of the choral sound and the registers of the human voice in his harmonies that the colours begin to flicker like the Northern lights, superbly enriching the text."

"Sebastian Hilli’s 'confluence / divergence', a 30-minute work for solo guitar and small ensemble sweeps the listener straight into a breath-taking flow of imaginative sounds, produced through a variety of unconventional playing techniques."

"​This programme is predicated on the twin abilities of Virpi Räisänen, who began her career as a violinist and then blossomed as a mezzo. It was stimulated by the knowledge that Holst’s Four Songs for Voice and Violin were intended for a single performer, singing and playing, but had never yet been recorded by a sole musician."

"With non-pitched percussion instruments in particular, Ferchen builds up an incredible intensity based not only on rhythm but also on bright and surprising colours."

"Auvinen’s finest talent is in the chillingly clear musical images that emerge from the pressurised fury."