Tomi Räisänen, Mikko Ikäheimo, Carla Rees & Neue Musik im Ostseeraum - Sauna, Ensemble Works (2016)

The pieces of music on this live album were recorded during the concert tour of the Finnish composer, Tomi Räisänen in North Germany in 2014 and 2015, organised by Neue Musik im Ostseeraum (Lübeck). The tour documented the composer’s long-time collaboration and connection with Northern Germany, or as one perhaps can say more descriptively, from a Finnish perspective, with the Southern Baltic Sea.

Is it possible to make a sauna audible? In ‘Die Sauna der 7 Brüder’ (‘The Sauna of the 7 Brothers’, 2010) it appears so: since the pre-recorded sauna sounds like fire crackles, löyly (the sound of a hot steam), squeaky oven doors are mixed with live playing, we are both listeners and, in a way, sauna bathers. In the background of this work there is the enthralling and funny Finnish novel ‘Seven Brothers’ (1870) by Aleksis Kivi (1834-1872), and one can almost imagine that individual episodes of the book are presented musically. Nevertheless, the music flows without a story; the musical drama is absolutely self-supporting and the composer has even developed and applied his own new harmonic system for this piece. This work was commissioned by Hansestadt Lübeck (Hanseatic city of Lübeck) in 2010 to celebrate 20 years of German reunification. But this is not actually a political piece: “I think that the cooperation in the Baltic region makes us a big family”, writes the composer in his programme notes, and ‘Die Sauna der 7 Brüder’, as well as this CD, are evidence of that.

The influence of nature can be found in all of the pieces: the fire in ‘Die Sauna der 7 Brüder’, the water in ‘Sea of Tranquility’ (2005), the Northern Lights in ‘Mirrie Dancers’ (2013) and finally the stars in ‘Grus’ (2008).

The Guitar Concerto, ‘Sea of Tranquility’ and the Alto Flute Concerto, ‘Mirrie Dancers’ should be taken together as they are companion works; one starts where the other ends. In ‘Sea of Tranquility’ we hear the calm standing ocean and a patiently unfolding musical world, in which the soloist gains our attention: the guitar’s lowest note, E, is present through the whole piece, through sections which are quiet-reflective and sections which are dramatic-surging. It is only at the end that it becomes “dissolved and frayed”.

The musical thread is picked up in ‘Mirrie Dancers’, but now the alto flute takes over the solo role. Here, again, there are pre-recorded background sounds; this time representing the Northern Lights, which are known as “Merry (or Mirrie) Dancers” in the Shetland Islands. These “dancing lights” are by no means only harmless and beautiful, but were also seen as harbingers of violent events, as the old proverb suggest: When the mirrie dancers play, they are like to slay. Here again we experience nature through music in original and powerful ways. The soloists in both pieces, Mikko Ikäheimo (guitar) and Carla Rees (alto flute) are those for whom music is “engraved in the soul”.

With the last piece, ‘Grus’ (‘Crane’, a constellation in the southern sky), we have arrived amongst the stars. According to the composer this work is about “the mystical, almost ritualistic atmosphere of ancient stargazers”. But the dark-eruptive force of some passages is anything but harmless.