Although Uuno Klami’s relatively early death in 1961, aged 61, deprived Finland of one of its senior figures, his reputation rests on his pre-war output, including the oratorio Psalmus (1936). The Intermezzo (1937) is the composer’s own arrangement for cor anglais and small orchestra of part of the oratorio’s opening span. It’s a shame he did not expand this to make a concertino, for this delightful miniature is over all too quickly. The Symphonie enfantine (1928-29) is quite complete, an easy-going but not clichéd partita for children not overshadowed by La bôite à joujoux or Children’s Corner.

The incidental music for The Prodigal Son (a Dalmatian play), by contrast, dates from 1945, though its three instrumental movements sound more like Les Six from the early 1920s (when Klami visited Paris on a highly formative study trip). His contribution also included three songs for voice and piano, expertly orchestrated by the Kymi Sinfonietta’s principal violist Eero Kesti (b1959) to flesh out a six-movement suite. The songs are stylistically rather different, more distinctly Nordic in character than their frothier companions. Kesti’s own stature as a composer can be discerned from his orchestral fantasia, Spring (1995), though it owes much to the older composer.

Excellently as he sings the three songs in The Prodigal Son, I am not convinced that Jorma Hynninen’s is quite the right kind of voice for them. No such misgivings arise with the second set of South Ostrobothnian Songs (1910) by Toivo Kuula (1883-1918). Like Klami, Kuula had fallen under the spell of the Impressionists but his use of the style was earthier, more Finnish. The seven songs, presented here in Nils-Eric Fougstedt’s orchestration, range from the delicate to the robust, all gloriously rendered by singer and orchestra. They close the disc nicely, though I am not entirely convinced they sit well with the Klami and Kesti.