Kuula: Complete Songs Vol. 2

Toivo Kuula is one of the many Romantic and late Romantic composers who died tragically at a young age – in his case, at 34: he was struck by a bullet fired after a scuffle at a victory celebration at the end of the Finnish Civil War. The immediacy of the music he composed during his short life illustrates the immense scale of the loss not only for Finnish culture but for music in general – as this second and final album, which presents his entire body of songs for solo voice and piano, clearly demonstrates. The range of moods captured here is impressive; the most passionate of these songs create an operatic intensity in their brief span, in a style that brings together the directness of expression and the rich late Romantic harmonies.