Sven Einar Englund (June 17, 1916–June 27, 1999) was a Finnish composer.Perhaps the most important Finnish symphonist since Sibelius, Englund was a native Swedish speaker who often felt that his career was sidelined from the mainstream of Finnish music.
He was 17 when he began studies at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki in 1933. Already a considerable pianist, he continued his studies with Martti Paavola and Ernst Linko, while studying composition with Bengt Carlson and Selim Palmgren.
Väinö Raitio - Joutsenet (The Swans), Op. 15 (1919)
Väinö Raitio (15 April 1891 – 10 September 1945) was part of the small group of composers who appeared in the Finnish art music scene in the 1920s with a new cosmopolitan music style, very different from the dominant conservative National Romanticism.
Raitio's career as a composer reached its peak in the 1920s when eight large symphonic poems appeared from his pen. Influenced by Alexander Scriabin, his style was too modern for Nordic music circles, and his orchestral work Joutsenet (The Swans, Les Cygnes) of 1919 remained as his sole orchestral piece to be published (in 1938).
Raitio's profile as a composer slipped, as he concentrated on shorter works for smaller ensembles in the 1930s and 1940s. In private, however, much effort was made by the composer to write operatic works. Still today, his five operas are only known from the composer's hand-written manuscripts.
Kuula - Piano Trio finale.Jouni Somero,piano,Pia Siirala,violin,Seppo Laamanen,cello
Toivo Timoteus Kuula (7 July 1883 – 18 May 1918) was a Finnish conductor and composer. He was born in the city of Vaasa (in those days Nikolainkaupunki), when Finland still was a Grand Duchy under Russian rule. He is known as a colorful and passionate portrayer of Finnish nature and people.
A younger contemporary of Sergei Rachmaninoff and Alexander Scriabin, he wrote a substantial number of compositions, all of which include the piano. His works include fourteen piano sonatas, three violin sonatas, three piano concerti, a piano quintet, three works for two pianos, many shorter piano pieces, and 108 songs including two substantial works for vocalise. His 38 piano pieces for which he appears to have invented the title Skazki (generally known as "Fairy Tales" in English but more correctly translated as "Tales") contain some of his most original music and are as central to his output as the piano sonatas.
After all these obscure composers here's some Bach, but you may not have heard it like this before. My ex-wife sent me this link this morning. Proof that one can get on with an ex - although it was once believed that glass instruments induced madness
And here's Robert Tiso playing a glass violin. Interesting, but I prefer his harp technique.
The masters of the glass harmonica, a semi automated version of water filled glasses were messrs. Lasry and Baschet.
They released a 10" LP in the sixties of various bits of Bach, Vivaldi and their own compositions. It was a truly amazing sound in the days before synthesizers but was killed off swiftly in 1968 by Switched On Bach which opened up completely the soundscape available to musicians.
What piece of classical music do you like?
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mile:
