Contemporary Finnish works for cello [Kaiku (Echo)]

Finnish-Dutch cellist Jonathan Roozeman presents a program of contemporary works for cello by Finnish composers. He is accompanied by pianist and composer Johannes Piirto on some of the pieces. At the center is a sonata by the experienced composer Kalevi Aho; the six works in the program reflect the diversity of contemporary Finnish music and were all composed in the last fifteen years. Sauli Zinovjevs’s “Sustained” appears as a ghostly, dissonant, fragmented reflection on the music of Romanticism. Cecilia Damströms “Aveo” was composed for people suffering from long Covid who had to say goodbye to their normal lives. “Recitativo” by Sebastian Fagerlund, a commissioned work for a cello competition, challenges not only the cellists’ mastery of the instrument but also their interpretive skills. “Sanasi, kiveen uponneet” by Outi Tarkiainen, a composer who brings the perspective of someone born in the north, in Finnish Lapland, into her music, is characterized by powerful soundscapes inspired by natural phenomena, as well as by human themes that appeal to the deepest emotions of humanity. The program concludes with “We Lie Down Only to Get Up Again” by Lauri Porra, a composer who embodies the complexity of contemporary Finnish music. This work evokes the atmosphere of a summer morning—full of warmth, perhaps even with a touch of longing.