Now in his early sixties, Usko Merilainen is one of Finland's most respected composers, though his representation in the catalogue has always been slight. His earliest works, such as the First Piano Concerto (1955) which Rhondda Gillespie recorded for Philips (long unavailable), were in a neo-Stravinskyan vein, but in the 1960s Merilainen turned to dodecaphony. His individual adaptation of serial techniques allied to a strong and dynamic imagination has produced an oeuvre of remarkable integrity, of which the three works issued here are fine examples.
The Second Piano Concerto (1969) is in marked contrast to the First, but Gillespie (dedicatee of Merilainen's Piano Sonata No. 3 of 1972) has no trouble with its expressionist intensity. Formally unconventional (the composer has described the piece as ''a permit to shape a statement of our violent world''), the work's overlapping variations serve to integrate the soloist within the orchestra. Despite several explosive passages, the overall atmosphere is one of quiet, watchful unease, and in the Third Symphony (1971) one senses an attempt to come to terms with and exorcise that unease. One of Merilainen's finest compositions, the symphony derives all its materials from two small cells, and exhibits a profounder logic and organization than the concerto.
In complete contrast, the Concerto for double-bass and percussion instruments (1973) is scored for just two performers, is lighter in tone and occupies an expressive world closer to that of late Shostakovich than Darmstadt. In the notes to the original LP issue (not generally available in the UK), not reproduced for the CD, Merilainen recalled how his young children dubbed it the ''teddy bear concerto''. All three works have transferred well from LP, losing none of their freshness. As an introduction to Merilainen's music this disc could scarcely be bettered.'