Riemuitkaamme! - A Finnish Christmas
£13.25
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Label: BIS
Cat No: BIS2322
Format: Hybrid SACD
Number of Discs: 1
Genre: Christmas
Release Date: 1st December 2017
Contents
Works
Angelus emittitur (Piae Cantiones, arr. Sibelius/Klemetti)Ecce novum gaudium (Piae Cantiones, arr. Sibelius)
Puer natus in Bethlehem (Piae Cantiones)
Chorale Prelude BWV645 'Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme'
L'Enfance du Christ, op.25
Pastorale for organ solo
Joulun kellot (The bells of Christmas)
Arkihuolesi kaikki heita
Vom Himmel hoch
Christmas Carol
Christmas Songs (5), op.1
Jouluhymni
Songs for Children (16), op.54
Aattoilta
Artists
Helsinki Chamber ChoirJan Lehtola (organ)
Conductor
Nils SchweckendiekWorks
Angelus emittitur (Piae Cantiones, arr. Sibelius/Klemetti)Ecce novum gaudium (Piae Cantiones, arr. Sibelius)
Puer natus in Bethlehem (Piae Cantiones)
Chorale Prelude BWV645 'Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme'
L'Enfance du Christ, op.25
Pastorale for organ solo
Joulun kellot (The bells of Christmas)
Arkihuolesi kaikki heita
Vom Himmel hoch
Christmas Carol
Christmas Songs (5), op.1
Jouluhymni
Songs for Children (16), op.54
Aattoilta
Artists
Helsinki Chamber ChoirJan Lehtola (organ)
Conductor
Nils SchweckendiekAbout
Sound/Video
Paused
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1Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme - Synkka yo maan peitti aivan (JS Bach)
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2En etsi valtaa, loistoa (Give me no Splendour, Gold or Pomp) (Sibelius arr. Elokas)
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3Arkihuolesi kaikki heita (Throw Off All Your Daily Cares) (Madetoja)
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4Puer Natus in Bethlehem - Synnytti piltin Bethlehem (Piae Cantiones, Praetorius, Schiedt, Buxtehude, Schein, JS Bach)
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5Pastorale for organ solo (Kuusisto)
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6Paimenten jaahyvaiset pyhalle perheelle (L'Adieu des Bergers) (Berlioz)
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7Joulun kellot (Christmas Bells) (Maasalo)
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8Ecce novum gaudium (Piae Cantiones, Sibelius)
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9Angelus Emittitir - Enkel' alas liihottaa (Piae Cantiones, Sibelius, Klemetti)
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10On lapsonen syntynyt meille (A Child is Born Unto Us) (Sibelius)
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11Aattoilta (Christmas Eve) (Whittall)
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12Enkeli taivaan lausui nain (Von Himmel hoch) (JS Bach, Praetorius, Hassler, Othmayr, Reger)
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13Christmas Carol (Rauutavaara)
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14Jouluhymni (Christmas Hymn) (Sonninen)
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15Pastorale for organ solo (Karvonen)
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16Jeesuslapsen tarhassa (Christ, when a Child, a Garden Made) (Tchaikovsky)
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17Mass on niin kaunis (Glorious is the Earth [Fairest Lord Jesus]) (traditional folk song from Silesia)
Europadisc Review
Appropriately for a year that has also commemorated 500 years of Luther’s Reformation, there’s a generous helping of numbers from the Lutheran tradition: chorales, as well as numbers from the Piae Cantiones, a 1582 Finnish anthology of hymns from around Europe. Several of these will be familiar to listeners, not least because they were used by David Willcocks in his Carols for Choirs series.
Proceedings begin with the pre-Advent chorale Wachet auf in Bach’s popular organ chorale prelude (played by Jan Lehtola) as well as the four-part choir harmonisation from Cantata BWV 147. In the case of Puer natus in Bethlehem (from the Piae Cantiones) and Luther’s Vom Himmel hoch, Schweckendiek and his choir present multi-verse ‘medleys’ of versions by various Baroque composers including Buxtehude, Scheidt and Praetorius, interweaved with more organ chorale preludes, three of them played on the choir organ of St Paul’s Church, Helsinki, which is tuned to a deliciously tangy meantone.
Among the numerous authentically Finnish items, Sibelius’s En etsi valtaa, loistoa (Give me no Splendour, Gold or Pomp) and Madetoja’s Arkihuolesi kaikki heitä (Throw off all your daily cares) are classics that deserve to be popular well beyond their nation’s borders: these performances will win them many new admirers. Armas Maasalo’s Joulun kellot is a particularly beguiling evocation of Christmas bells, while the soaring soprano lines of Rautavaara’s Christmas Carol betray the work’s unmistakable origin as a commission for King’s College, Cambridge (2010), providing a link with another illustrious seasonal tradition.
The Helsinki Chamber Choir is committed to the promotion of new compositions, and this disc includes a notable contribution to the festive repertoire with Canadian-Finnish composer Matthew Whittall’s specially commissioned Aattoilta (Christmas Eve), its teasingly elongated dissonances and rapt stillness making an indelible impression. Of the two solo organ Pastorales, Taneli Kuusitso’s is the more mysteriously distant, Arvi Karvonen’s the more variegated, with an intriguingly voiced, harmonically adventurous central section that hints at the exotic or folk-like.
More familiar numbers include a gently sung performance of Berlioz’s Shepherd’s Farewell (in Finnish!), and the finely paced programme culminates in a searingly intense account of Tchaikovsky’s setting of the ‘Crown of Roses’, Jeesuslapsen tarhaasa (Christ, when a Child, a garden made / When Jesus Christ was yet a Child). Rounding things off is Maa on niin kaunis, originally a folk song from Silesia, better known to anglophone audiences as ‘Fairest Lord Jesus’, which artlessly brings the emotional temperature back down.
Every year brings a clutch of new Christmas discs, but this one is particularly distinctive, with its unpushy national flavour, beautifully classy singing, typically fine production values, and well-designed programme. It’s just the thing to set the mood on Christmas Eve, but will delight listeners well beyond that. Riemuitkaamme indeed!
Reviews
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