Contemporary/ClassicalReviewsAutumn2020

"The performances are lively and delicate throughout, resulting in an elegant and enjoyable whole."

"Generally speaking, exploratory modernist choral music is taxing to both perform and listen to, but this disc is an exception. Both Antti Auvinen and Sampo Haapamäki take the listener on a roller-coaster ride."

"Mäntyjärvi makes such full use of the potential of the choral sound and the registers of the human voice in his harmonies that the colours begin to flicker like the Northern lights, superbly enriching the text."

"Sebastian Hilli’s 'confluence / divergence', a 30-minute work for solo guitar and small ensemble sweeps the listener straight into a breath-taking flow of imaginative sounds, produced through a variety of unconventional playing techniques."

"​This programme is predicated on the twin abilities of Virpi Räisänen, who began her career as a violinist and then blossomed as a mezzo. It was stimulated by the knowledge that Holst’s Four Songs for Voice and Violin were intended for a single performer, singing and playing, but had never yet been recorded by a sole musician."

"With non-pitched percussion instruments in particular, Ferchen builds up an incredible intensity based not only on rhythm but also on bright and surprising colours."

"Auvinen’s finest talent is in the chillingly clear musical images that emerge from the pressurised fury."

"There are moments, when Kostiainen does things that give the ears a good tweak: one striking passage has minimalist oscillating flutes above a lyrical cello line; at another point a saxophone emerges unexpectedly from the orchestra; and the bells and trumpets that open the Missa Paschalis, and the passage for baritone and chorus that they introduce, recall Kokkonen’s The Last Temptations directly."