Finland's national epic, The Kalevala , was actually assembled by a 19th century folklorist from some folk poetry rather than coming straight down from Ur-Nordic times, but it served a purpose for a country wedged between more powerful Russians and Swedes, and it is quite familiar to Finns. It is much less so to music listeners elsewhere, who know it, if at all, through Sibelius' Kullervo, Op. 7, and Lemminkäinen Suite, Op. 22. However, other Finnish composers took up the subject matter, and this BIS release offers some ...
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Finland's national epic, The Kalevala , was actually assembled by a 19th century folklorist from some folk poetry rather than coming straight down from Ur-Nordic times, but it served a purpose for a country wedged between more powerful Russians and Swedes, and it is quite familiar to Finns. It is much less so to music listeners elsewhere, who know it, if at all, through Sibelius' Kullervo, Op. 7, and Lemminkäinen Suite, Op. 22. However, other Finnish composers took up the subject matter, and this BIS release offers some samples of the results. It is interesting that they would mostly not have known Kullervo, which Sibelius declined to publish and largely suppressed, but the Lemminkäinen Suite, one section of which appears here in a never-before-performed version, was certainly well enough known, and these composers had to deal with Sibelius' towering influence in much the same way 19th century Germans and Austrians had to deal with Beethoven. The presence of Sibelius does make one understand why...
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Add this copy of Scenes From the Kalevala to cart. $21.80, new condition, Sold by Importcds rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Sunrise, FL, UNITED STATES, published 2021 by BIS.
