FMQ 2/2000

The wooden architecture of the new Sibelius Hall in Lahti provided both traditional and modern support to the Lahti Symphony’s performance of Sibelius’ Finlandia at the hall’s debut on March 9th [2000].The hall’s intriguing combination of proven and new should also help efforts to export Finnish wood-construction expertise and design. Externally, the hall was almost completed in time for the inaugural concert, but it will still take months to “tune” the acoustics. The New York firm Artec and its acoustics team want to polish the hall's timbre to its utmost.

Although serious music is often looked upon as a clearly defined genre of its own, it has by no means remained immune to the influence of its surroundings. Composers have from time immemorial been spicing their works with ingredients borrowed from popular and folk music, and the Finns have been no exception in this respect. Folk music really blossomed in the music of the National Romantics of the 19th century, but it was also a major source of inspiration for many of the 20th century modernists.

"From the shadow of Sibelius, a quite different Finnish composer emerged. Uuno Klami regarded national subjects through the eyes of a humorist, without romanticizing, but he was also fascinated by exotism. As an orchestral virtuoso he was without parallel in Finland," writes Helena Tyrväinen on the 100th anniversary of Uuno Klami, the ‘Sunday’s child’ of Finnish music.