YL mediassa

Only two more boxes after this and BIS’s regal Sibelius Edition will be complete. The symphonies are next: (including fragments) due January 2011 and a mopping up, miscellanea and Masonic box is to follow in April 2011.

The schema of this set is broadly: first two CDs of male voice choirs, second couple of female or children’s choirs and last pair: Appendices and variants for various choral specifications. The discs have in common singing that picks up on wonderfully varied dynamics, word unanimity and watchfully-honed attention to mood and colouration. There are various different versions of the same piece as must be the case with a project of this sort.

Earlier instalments linked with the present volume include:-
Vol.3 - Voice and Orchestra
Vol.7 - Complete Solo Songs

The first disc launches with lusty piano playing at full throttle in two Kullervo extracts from Ilmo Ranta. The passion of the playing makes up for some laboured elbows-out awkwardness. Ranta makes most poetic work of the trembling and glittering music at the start of Kullervo’s Death . The engaged singing allows for superbly graded dynamics and plenty of heft. Hynninen is the doyen of Kullervos while Rusanen the soprano is impressive if not quite as flammable as some of her predecessors. These two tracks are the third and fourth movements from Kullervo but laid out for choir and piano.

Rakastava is sung honey-honed and suave yet not facile. It resists the pull towards sentimentality. To the Moon and The Boat Journey are Kalevala texts in the Kirby translation (Everyman Edition). Boat journey is full of ruddy outdoors life. Here the words are sung out with thudding impact over a bass drone. One can see how Veljo Tormis might have been influenced. Song of my heart , to words by Alexis Kivi, relies soundly on beauty inflected by melancholy. Cease O Cataract - completed by Erik Bergman with Jussi Jalas and Erik Tawastjerna – is a jolly piece from material derived from the Kalevala. The 1896 Hymn carries slight overtones of Finlandia but is more ecclesiastical in feel as is In the moonlight .

The very short Song of the Athenians (text: Viktor Rydberg) appears here in a version for boys’ and men’s voices with piano and harmonium. It is lustily delivered in the manner of Carmina Burana . That said, rather stolid march tempo that develops suggests something of a national anthem – the equivalent of John Brown's Body . Sandels (Runeberg) – cheeky and jolly rather than rhetorically heroic – hymns a national Finnish hero. It’s for male voice choir and piano.

The male voice theme continues with the second disc. The resounding Har du Mod ? ( Have you courage? ) is very forthright and masculine. It is even more impressively gruff and stand-and-deliver in the 1911 revision (tr.7). The churchy The Power of Song . My Brothers Abroad is defiant. Mr Lager and the Fair One (1914) is enchanting. Sibelius blossoms in the Five Songs op. 84 (1914-15). In Eternal Eros baritone Olle Persson rises resolutely above the male voice choir. To Sea is a swinging forthright shanty rather than an evocation of the murmuring oceanic miles. Origin of Fire is here – a work known in its orchestral version and first fierily recorded in that form by Thor Johnson in Cincinnati for Remington - with baritone (Raimo Laukka), male voice choir and piano. Folke Gräsbeck, who presided over the two Bis volumes of piano solo music, rides the rapids and is at the keyboard again for the last two items on the disc.

On CD 2 we hear the March of the Finnish Jäger Battalion which appears in one of the orchestral volumes. It is here evocative of nothing so much as one of those WW2 arm-swinging Soviet marching songs of the 1940s. It is unrelentingly cheerful in the collective spot-on power of the voices. Gräsbeck punches in the rhythmic emphasis and much the same goes for Karelia's Fate later on the disc. The 1925 Humoreski (tr.22) is original in tone. It works as a moving even sentimental moonlit serenade. Very affecting as also is Likhet where the caramel-lyric headline moves over a thrumming bass drone. This disc ends as does the sixth disc with the composer’s 1940 male voice arrangement of the familiar 1899 Finlandia Hymn .

The third CD moves on to music for mixed choir. It’s refreshing after so much male voice dominance. The Jubilate and Dominante choirs revel in the silvery and ringing resonance of the 1888 settings (first six tracks). March of the Labourers has the decisive determination of the marches on CDs 1 and 2. Italy was a popular stamping ground for Sibelius and it should come as little surprise that there are two red-blooded little Neapolitan-style songs written in 1897-98. The academic cantata was a genre much favoured by Sibelius, Alfven and Nielsen - no doubt the commission fee was welcome and a composer must live as well as create great things. The 20 minute cantata for the 1897 University Graduation Ceremony is not just a confection of Gaudeamus Igitur marches with arrogant caps and gowns. There is time instead for romantic reflection. This is perhaps typical of the Scandinavian take on German romantic choral repertoire as favoured by Brahms and Schumann. Many on the Sea of Life (tr. 15) is remarkably open-hearted. As the Swift Current rings the changes by adding parts for triangle, cymbals and bass drum in music that for me looks forward - far forward - to The Tempest . The three pieces that make up the Carminalia are reverentially ecclesiastical in style. Another version of Rakastava then puts in a further appearance and serves to point up the attractions of this music. Fortunate indeed that unlike Valse Triste this piece must have made him a little money. Despite its ubiquity this must have brought him some material reward. His Six Songs op. 18 include four settings or mixed choir. The Venematka we have heard before, for men only. Its punchy rhythmic invention shines even brighter with the addition of female voices and it is sung with turbo-charged fervour. The innocent Busy as a Thrush from 1898 trips along most beautifully and is further evidence of these excellent performances and recording.

CD 4 continues the mixed choir theme. Listen to the Watermill is a rare setting of words in English. One wonders if this text had been commended to him by one of his British champions – perhaps Bantock. We also hear the three English language songs for American schools (trs. 9-11). A Cavalry Catch is to words by Fiona Macleod whose poetry was set by Bantock in the folk-opera, The Seal Woman . Truth to tell, this little song is a very simple thing without any faery subtlety. Two of these three songs include a piano part. Deeply treasurable is the suave Men from Land and Sea of 1911. This is followed by The Bells of Kallio Church which we heard in the piano solo version on one of the two piano volumes played by Folke Gräsbeck.

Partiolaisten marssi ( Scout March ) has the flavour of a grand processional assembly march with martial piano very much to the fore. This is in company with several skilled but unassuming school songs, carols and hymns. We also hear another version of the Finlandia Hymn and then a sequence for Female only or Children's Choir including the swirlingly disturbing piece for women's choir Why O Father do you Kiss My Bride 1889-90 - a Greek folksong as worded by Johan Runeberg. The women's voices version of Carminalia is not short on passionate determination and the tone of the choir positively shines when it comes to In stadio laboris (tr. 22). More silvery enchantment is on offer in Homesickness for three-part female choir. Hiding behind the title of Impromptu is some growlingly dark sentiment and Folke Gräsbeck is fully complicit in the mood. This is one of the strangest and most provocative pieces here. All the more surprising as it lurks behind the most inconsequential of titles.

The children's choir March of the Primary School Children shows invention and freshness yet keeps true to simplicity. More subtle material also yields satisfaction in the shape of In the morning Mist . The Two Christmas Songs are for two-part female choir. These dates from 1900 but were worked over afresh in the depths of the Second World War. I really liked the deliberate emphasis of the singing in High Are the Snowdrifts . The disc ends with the very late school assembly-style, piano-accompanied The World Song of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts . It has stirring words sung without a blink or hint of embarrassment. Refreshingly bright and straight-speaking.

CDs 5 and 6 set out various Appendices and variants. CD 5 launches with Appendix 1. First we hear some cool academic chorales for Martin Wegelius in Helsinki (1887-89). Two of them are presented in two versions. These are unadorned technical exercises. They have curiosity value rather than anything else to lift them from the mundane. Then come the chorales written for Albert Becker in Berlin (1889-90). These are a different proposition and are less strictly regimented. They show more freedom and inspiration fledges. These pieces are a significant leap forward being more than mere exercises in technique. They are wonderfully sung by the Dominante Choir under Seppo Murto. We end with the ornamented and piano-accompanied (Gräsbeck again) Herr, du bist ein Fels . This is pleasant enough but shows hardly a glimmer of the troubled magus Sibelius was to become.

The last disc sets forth the second appendix - this time of alternatives and preliminary versions. Mind you we have already encountered, within this set, many alternative versions but hey ho more to come and nothing is boring or certainly nothing is disagreeable; far from it. There's the lively, rhetorical and sometimes soulful piano-accompanied Cantata for the University Graduation Ceremonies of 1897. The Finnish language gleams and glows in this context. Sample the These Young Guardians of Light at tr. 3 with its affecting parts for the soloists. This 40 minute sequence should not be taken for granted. In addition there are yet further versions of the burnished Natus in curas for male voice choir and for two-part female choir with organ the three segment Carminalia which here emerges in rather ascetic weeds. I rather liked the fiercely sung Song of the Athenians for boys and men's choir a cappella . It here receives its world premiere recording as with so much else in this set. Again the Impromptu , with the turbulent and sometimes jaunty piano part sets a provocative contrast with the female choir. Similarly stark and belligerently forward is Have You Courage? for male voice choir and piano. At tr. 24 we have Nejden andas which is said to be for children's choir but this sounds like a female choir. Till havs ( To sea ) sounds as salty and ozone-fierce as in the version heard earlier in the set. We end fittingly with two yet further versions of the fervent Finlandia Hymn – one is for male voice choir a cappella (1899 arr. 1938) and the other a version in A flat major for mixed choir (arr. 1948). Each is set to different words by Wäinö Sola and Veikko Antero Koskenniemi.

The lucid and imaginatively-organised notes are by Sibelius authority Andrew Barnett whose rewarding major biography is well worth getting. Might I also put in a plea for another biography - not the rather indigestible three volume Tawaststjerna tome (in Robert Layton's translation) but a for me recent discovery: the Phaidon Press book by Guy Rickards. It is the most pacy and gratifyingly readable Sibelius book I have come across. It is generous with fresh insights and discoveries at every turn with new light shed on works by their interaction with Sibelius's life. The much more detailed Andrew Barnett book follows hot on its heels.

An over-width box houses the six discs and substantial booklet with full annotation. The box is more fully filled with the sixth disc. Naturally the cover design of the box is uniform with the other volumes. Those two swans, the morning lake and pine trees are by now iconic among Sibelians. There’s a plain white sleeve with transparent window for each CD.

Bis are a thoughtful company. One example - you can liberate each disc from its envelope by simply shaking it out. Banal? Well, in many cases these bargain boxes offer envelopes in which the CD can barely be extricated from the envelope, so tight is the fit. The booklet does some gladdening keying from contents page to sung text – a really practical approach.

That’s it then: a comprehensive treasury of Sibelius's concerted vocal writing moving through heroic, rhetorical, innocent, anthem, school room, assembly hall, boudoir, church and jamboree. Comprehensive is a tall order - one wonders what other discoveries will be made in years to come. Presumably Bis will mop up any discoveries in their last volume. Meantime, look forward with hope to the next box which will include the symphonies with fragments and alternative versions. By June 2011 the final volume will be upon us including the Masonic music and the stragglers.

True Sibelians will have advance-ordered this set and will not be disappointed. It maintains the admirable standards of presentation, scholarship and revelatory delight achieved by the previous volumes.

Nothing sounds merely time-serving or academic gap-filling. Everything projects as a full musical experience - some modest and some much more - but all the works are aptly even fervently communicated. I cannot stress too much the excellent tone, coordination and artistic feeling of the choirs chosen for this momentous series.

Rob Barnett