Eng / News & Events / Critical acclaim / Finnish Music Quarterly 3/2008, 1.10.2008.
Critical acclaim
”if you don't have Sibelius' major works for male-voice choir, here's a straightforward way of adding them to your library”
Finnish Music Quarterly
/ MA, 3/2008, 1.10.2008.YL, the Helsinki University Male-Voice Choir, has been associated with Sibelius' music since before he began writing for them: this year sees their 125th anniversary, and this CD is one of three being released to mark the occasion.
Most of the material here has been released before but BIS cunningly salts a few first recordings into each compilation – here it's the original versions of the hymns Natus in curas (1896) and To the Fatherland and the 'draft version' of To Sea (1917) – eight minutes of music of compelling interest only to Sibelius completitst, perhaps. Still, if you don't have Sibelius' major works for male-voice choir, here's a straight-forward way of adding them to your library. A pity, though, that in The Origin of Fire YL doesn't match Osmo Vänskä's Lahti Orchestra in rhythmic bite.
