COMPOSERS: Sibelius
LABELS: Ondine
WORKS: Lastu lainehilla; Illalle
PERFORMER: Karita Mattila (sop), Ilmo Ranta (piano)
CATALOGUE NO: ODE 856-2 DDD
Thanks to the Germano-Gallic hegemony of the concert hall, Sibelius’s songs still suffer quite scandalous neglect. Mattila, with her increasingly lustrous soprano, reveals powerfully the unique melodic and harmonic pungency of 24 of his 100 or so songs in an irresistible recital. The sensuous urgency in the settings of his beloved JL Runeberg (‘The Tryst’, ‘The North’) is complemented by the lilting simplicity of his rarer Finnish settings, such as ‘Illalle’ and ‘Lastu lainehilla’. Hilary Finch
Sibelius: Lastu lainehilla; Illalle
Thanks to the Germano-Gallic hegemony of the concert hall, Sibelius’s songs still suffer quite scandalous neglect. Mattila, with her increasingly lustrous soprano, reveals powerfully the unique melodic and harmonic pungency of 24 of his 100 or so songs in an irresistible recital. The sensuous urgency in the settings of his beloved JL Runeberg (‘The Tryst’, ‘The North’) is complemented by the lilting simplicity of his rarer Finnish settings, such as ‘Illalle’ and ‘Lastu lainehilla’. Hilary Finch
Published: January 20, 2012 at 3:07 pm