When I met Karita Mattila recently, she enthused at length about recording Starlit Night (''Stjarnenatten''): sentiments reciprocated by composer Jouni Kaipainen (b. 1956) in his notes accompanying this disc. The result of this mutually happy collaboration is certainly impressive, a nocturnal cantata using an unusual combination—high voice with six cellos, four double-basses, percussion and piano. The full soprano range is used: Kaipainen particularly wanted the colours of the soprano's lowest register and this, amongst other telling effects, has made for a work of remarkable richness, in what sounds like an impeccable performance.
Now in his sixties, Usko Merlainen (b. 1930) is still very much a pioneer: Metamorfora per 7 (1969) is more relaxed than usual but none the less full of his characteristically quirky invention. Uuno Klami (1900-61) was a younger contemporary of Aarre Merikanto (whose centenary falls this year); both looked beyond Finland (i.e. away from Sibelius) for models, Klami adopting impressionism, if not always comfortably. Rag-time and Blues (1931), though is untypical, close in spirit to some of Martinu's jazz-inspired works of the 1920s.
Nielsen's Serenata in vano (less familiar than it deserves) is performed nicely by the Lahti players and does not suffer by comparison with either of those versions listed above (on Chandos and BIS). The abbreviated 1954 arrangement by Franz Hasenohrl (1885-1970) of Till Eulenspiegel will either delight or outrage depending on one's attitude to the original. What would he have done to Ein Heldenleben?'