Armas Järnefelt (1869-1958) is arguably one of the most important national romantic composers in Finland. He is best known as a conductor and he had an extensive career as the director of Stockholm’s Opera for over 30 years. He was a great admirer of Richard Wagner’s music and during his conducting career he performed his every opera. Like nearly all Finnish composers at the time, his music also was left in the shadow of Jean Sibelius. As a composer he is best known for orchestra miniatures Berceuse and Praeludium and his choir and lied music, but the piano works contain several hidden treasures. In Finland he studied composition with Martin Wegelius and piano with Ferruccio Busoni and later continued his studies in Berlin and Paris. He performed frequently as a pianist with his wife, singer Maikki Pakarinen and they even made a few recordings in Finland and Sweden.

The goal of this album has been to record Järnefelt’s complete piano works for the first time. In addition to Järnefelt’s original piano pieces the album includes his arrangements of music by other composers as well as other composer’s arrangements of Järnefelt’s music. Thus, these three categories have now been gathered on a single album for the first time.