Jean Sibelius - Songs (Pia Freund; Tommi Hakala; Kristian Attila)

Information

Composer: Jean Sibelius

1. Tanken, JS 192
2. Illalle, Op. 17 No. 6
3. Vem styrde hit din väg? Op. 90 No. 6
4. Bollspelet vid Trianon, Op. 36 No. 3 (Version for Voice & Piano)
5. Under strandens granar, Op. 13 No. 1
6. Kyssens hopp, Op. 13 No. 2
7. Hjartats morgon, Op. 13 No. 3
8. Den första kyssen, Op. 37 No. 1
9. Lasse liten, Op. 37 No. 2
10. Sommarnatten, Op. 90 No. 5
11. Våren flyktar hastigt, Op. 13 No. 4
12. Drommen, Op. 13 No. 5
13. Till Frigga, Op. 13 No. 6
14. Säv, säv, susa, Op. 36 No. 4 (Version for Voice & Piano)
15. Jägargossen, Op. 13 No. 7 (Version for Voice & Piano)
16. Kaiutar, Op. 72 No. 4 (Version for Voice & Piano)
17. Demanten på marssnön, Op. 36 No. 6 (Version for Voice & Piano)
18. En visa, JS 71
19. Svarta rosor, Op. 36 No. 1 (Version for Voice & Piano)
20. Sov in!, Op. 17 No. 2
21. Vilse, Op. 17 No. 4
22. Långsamt som kvällsskyn, Op. 61 No. 1 (Version for Voice & Piano)
23. Flickan kom ifrån sin älsklings möte, Op. 37 No. 5 (Version for Voice & Piano)
24. Hennes budskap, Op. 90 No. 2
25. Marssnön, Op. 36 No. 5 (Version for Voice & Piano)
26. Sma flickorna, JS 174
27. I natten, Op. 38 No. 3 (Version for Voice & Piano)
28. Och finns det en tanke?, Op. 86 No. 4
29. Norden, Op. 90 No. 1
30. Var det en dröm?, Op. 37 No. 4 (Version for Voice & Piano)

Pia Freund, soprano

Tommi Hakala, baritone

Kristian Attila, piano

Date: 2019

Label: Alba

https://alba.fi/tuote/norden-songs-by-jean-sibelius/

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Review

This selection of about a third of Sibelius’s solo songs with piano confirms again the composer’s imaginatively wide selection of (Swedish) lyrics to set, ranging from the sometimes sad Romantic country-based imagery of poets such as Johan Ludwig Runeberg (‘Tanken’ or ‘Norden’, ‘The Thought’ or ‘The North’) and Gustaf Fröding’s ‘Säf, säf, susa’ (‘Sigh, sigh, sedges’) to the very urban 20th-century wit of Hjalmar Procopé’s ‘Små flickorna’. Here the ‘Young Girls’ of the title ‘walk with pert expressions / And flustered morning fringes / To the tapping of typewriters / And telephone greetings’ and a teasing, walking piano accompaniment.

The push and pull of this ‘watching all the girls go by’ showtime atmosphere is perfectly judged here by Pia Freund and Kristian Attila – although the joke oddly seems to escape a more heavily paced rival reading from Elisabeth Söderström on Decca’s collection of all the songs. The immediately following, and rather spooky, ‘I natten’ (‘In the Night’) confirms the good touch and dramatic sense of Attila, who makes as much of these often-criticised piano parts (surely their space is meant as a kit for interpreters to work with) as any modern pianist aside from Bengt Forsberg for Anne Sofie von Otter.

Generally speaking, Freund and Tommi Hakala here find an attractively intimate, chamber route into these songs, short-changing on neither enjoyment nor pain but without the more heart-on-sleeve approach of the justifiably famous Kim Borg 1950s DG recital or von Otter’s BIS collection. It’s hard to signal outright winners in a field that’s happily increasing in both number and interpretative range, but this new collection, with well-balanced natural recording and including many better-known items, stands up well alongside the two cited above and that by Katarina Karnéus.

-- Mike Ashman, Gramophone

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Jean Sibelius (8 December 1865 – 20 September 1957) was a Finnish violinist and composer of the late Romantic and early-modern periods. His music contributed to the development of a feeling of national identity in Finland where he is now celebrated as the country's greatest composer. Sibelius is widely known for his seven symphonies, the violin concerto and the tone poems, especially Finlandia and the Karelia suite. Throughout his career, the composer found inspiration in nature and Nordic mythology. He almost completely stopped composing after 1920s and did not produce any large-scale works in his last thirty years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Sibelius

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Pia Freund (born 8 December 1964 in Turku, Finland) is a Finnish soprano.

https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pia_Freund

https://fazerartists.fi/artisti/freund-pia/?lang=en

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Tommi Hakala (born 9 August 1970 in Riihimäki, Finland) is a Finnish baritone.

https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommi_Hakala

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Kristian Attila (born 1969) is a Finnish pianist.

https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristian_Attila

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