Väinö Raitio

Ida Moberg (1859–1947) wished to command ensembles that produced a large sound while also touching human emotions: Most of her output is for orchestra or choir or both. The topics of her works largely has to do with individual’s spiritual metamorphosis.

"Jean Dubé’s virtues here are that he gives the music time to speak and that he reproduces its textures with commendable clarity, to which the recorded sound does full justice."

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.

Väinö Raitio (1891–1945) was one of Finland’s musical modernists in the 1920s – praised but unperformed until the last couple of decades. Nowadays, his colorful orchestral works have become the focus of growing interest. This year, the Helsinki Festival started its concert programme with a one-of-a-kind performance of Raitio’s first full-length opera, Princess Cecilia (1933) – previously performed 81 years ago.

Väinö Raitio was a Modernist Finnish composer whose works were received with considerable reservations in his lifetime. Today, Raitio’s music is interesting both because of the period in which it was written and because of its artistic quality. Pluralism has rehabilitated Raitio, and music historians no longer need to adhere to the dramatic martyrdom conventionally ascribed to him.

Independent Finland is 100 years old and has a classical music scene that is diverse, pluralist and multicultural. A century ago, the situation was very different: just as the nation was heavily polarised after the bitter Civil War, musical life was similarly divided. It is not too much of a simplification to identify two musical camps: official national neo-Romanticism and “left-wing” modernism.