Customer Reviews

Sounds of Finland

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Several of the works on this album are composed by Finns, or so I assume by their names: Sibelius, Hannikainen, Putro, Koskinen, Kuula, Panula, Pacius, Sallinen and Rautavaara. There are common European works by Bach, Handel, Praetorius and an interesting group of Japanese Songs. There are a few traditional / anonymous pieces.

By topic there are several patriotic songs - "Finlandia Hymn", "Song of Findland", "Our Country". Several are Christmas season songs - To Us a Festival is Given, "A son Is Born in Bethlehem", "Marjatta, Lowly Maiden", "Maria, the Lord's Little Maiden". Several are on folk themes - the Lappish "Jojk", "Oh Nightingale, Come!" ...

The resulting album is a wonderful mix of unfamilar music that you will soon want to make familar. I personally find Rautavaara a difficult composer - I understand his appeal, I simply don't share it - but I find all the other music very accessible.

The children's choir has very clear tone and enunciation, their voices blend splendidly. Technically this is an excellent album.

Do give these composers a try - you'll find yourself searching the catalogues for more.

This is a lovely recording of mainly Finnish choral music, with a little Swedish, Japanese and Latin thrown in. The recording quality, while not great, is pretty good considering these were recorded in 1977 and 1979. The choir, the Tapiola Children's Choir, conducted by Erkki Pohjola, is really quite wonderful - nice tone, good tuning and very musical performances. I bought this CD for the recording of the traditional Japanese song, Hotaru Koi, arranged by Akira Ogura. It's a good performance of the piece: clean and precise with nice attention to dynamics. Once I listened to the rest of the CD, I found that it is all quite enjoyable. Some of the Finnish music is a little pedantic and nationalistic, but the CD as a whole is a very good recording by a very good children's choir.