Toivo Kuula

"Kuula can create a powerful sense of atmosphere – I won’t fall back on the cliché of 'brooding northern forests', but you know what I mean – with remarkably few notes, and this fondness for heroic understatement suggests that he might have made a most impressive symphonist."

His music is constantly being performed abroad. In Finland, he is known as a composer of choral music and an active singer. Regular readers of FMQ will recognise him as one of our house translators. Jaakko Mäntyjärvi is something of a musical outlier.

The wars fought in the early decades of Finland’s independence cast a long, dark shadow far into the second half of the 20th century. The voice of war in works by Finnish composers speaks of victory, defeat, grief and reconciliation.

"The extensive output for male choir of Toivo Kuula (1883–1918) inspired two Finnish male choirs to release a complete recording on the occasion of the 130th anniversary of his birth. This allows for a tantalising direct comparison..."

In his article from 1987 Markku Kilpiö takes a look at Finnish choral singing.