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The Kalevala Suite (in Finnish: Kalevala-sarja), Op. 23, is a five-movement concert suite for orchestra written from 1930 to 1933 by the Finnish composer Uuno Klami.

Salmenhaara (Chandos)

 * "Klami can be said to have brought neoclassicism to Finnish music. In doing so he introduced to Finnish music a breath of fresh air – a step away from the somewhat gloomy and stereotyped national romanticism." (p.4)


 * "In total it took Klami fourteen years to compose the Kalevala Suite (1929–33/1943) which for a long time was considered his most important work. The genesis of the suite has only recently been discovered. In 1929 Klami planned to compose ‘16 tableaux from the Kalevala for soloists, choir, organ and orchestra’. In 1931 he announced to a journalist that he had fi nished a ‘Kalevala Oratorio’ in twelve movements. Of this, only the score of the introduction survives, being an early version of ‘The Creation of the Earth’, the first movement of the present suite. All the other movements of the work also exist in several versions. In 1933, for the jubilee of the Kalevala two years later, Klami planned a stage work, designed to last an entire evening, in the form of an ancient Greek tragedy, with a narrator and corps de (p. 5) / ballet, which in around eighteen tableaux would portray the heroes and events of the Kalevala." (p. 6)


 * "In the same year the original Kalevala Suite for orchestra was fi rst performed in a four-movement version (‘The Creation of the Earth’, ‘Pastorale’, ‘Cradle Song’ and ‘The Forging of the Sampo’) with the title ‘Choreographic Pictures from the Kalevala’." The conductor Armas Järnefelt criticised the work as unbalanced, since a scherzo was missing. Klami set about composing one, and the result, in 1934, was ‘Lemminkäinen’s Island Adventures’. However, this made the imbalance even more pronounced because of the comprehensiveness of the new movement, and it was subsequently omitted and treated as an independent composition. Finally, in 1943, the defi nitive fi ve-movement version was fi rst performed in a concert devoted to Klami’s works. The airy, masterly orchestrated scherzo, ‘Terhenniemi’, was a completely new movement and the others had been revised." (p. 6)


 * "The brilliant orchestral fresco that is the Kalevala Suite is a ‘Finnish Sacre’ which moved the polished, sophisticated orchestral technique of Ravel and the modern primitivism of Stravinsky into Finnish orchestral literature. ‘The Forging of the Sampo’ with which the suite culminates is one of the most effective pieces in Finnish music and a good example of Klami’s independent harmonic cadences." (p. 6)

Tyväinen (Ondine)

 * "It was Kajanus who proposed that Klami should write a composition based on the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala. The idea was that it would be an advantage for modern music to score a victory “on the old fields of glory”, as he explained. No wonder that he was interested in Kajanus’s proposal – but the world of the Kalevala proved to be difficult to enter for the enfant terrible of Finnish music. (p. 4)


 * "He began to work on a ‘Kalevala oratorio’, then on a “staged work with narrator and corps de ballet” which in one version had no fewer than 18 tableaux. The first version of the Kalevala Suite, with four movements, was premiered in 1933, conducted by Kajanus’s successor Georg Schnéevoigt. This was originally to have included the scherzo Lemminkäisen seikkailut Saaressa (The Adventures of Lemminkäinen on the Island of Saari, 1934), in which Klami mocked the Romantic Kalevala tradition like only an iconoclast moulded by 1920s Paris could. (p. 4)


 * "Years later, when the world had changed and after Klami had come home from the war in February 1942, he began to rework the Kalevala Suite. As the war continued and as Sibelius continued to maintain the ‘silence of Järvenpää’, Finland was badly in need of a boost to its spiritual values. Klami replaced the Lemminkäinen piece with a new movement, Terhenniemi; times had changed, and the provocative features of many of his early works had disappeared. The Kalevala Suite attained its final form in 1943, while the war was still going on, and Toivo Haapanen conducted (p. 4) / its triumphant premiere in Helsinki. Critics hailed the piece as a landmark not only in the composer’s output but in Finnish music as a whole. The conception of Klami as the most significant Finnish composer of his generation was strengthened." (p. 5)


 * "While Sibelius often approached the world of the Kalevala through its characters, Klami’s masterpiece has been described as an orchestral fresco. The cold cosmic vision in Maan synty (The Creation of the Earth) evolves from a primordial void into a brilliant celebration of the creation of the planet, and the immediately following Kevään oras (The Sprout of Spring) is a gentle image of nature. The scherzo, Terhenniemi, is replete with the sounds of nature and the bliss of a sunny summer day. None of the movements in the suite depict characters from the Kalevala; even the austere and melancholy fourth movement is not named after Lemminkäinen’s Mother but is entitled Kehtolaulu Lemminkäiselle (Cradle Song for Lemminkäinen). Not until the last movement, Sammon taonta (The Forging of the Sampo), does Klami turn to ancient Finnish runo tunes, conveying to the listener a sense of national effort. Erik Tawaststjerna has described the progression in the five movements of the suite as “the coalescing of a spirit from original twilight to physical action”." (p. 5)


 * "The Kalevala Suite has served well as a vehicle for orchestras and virtuoso conductors to display their prowess, and it has with justification been included as a showpiece for Finnish music on many foreign tours of the Helsinki Philharmonic." (p. 5)

Original version (1933)
The original version of the Kalevala Suite (in four movements) premiered on 10 February 1933 in Helsinki, with the Finnish conductor Georg Schnéevoigt conducting the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra; also on the program was Nielsen's Symphony No. 3, Sinfonia Espansiva (1911) and Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major (1806), with Martti Paavola as soloist.

... hmmm .... Uuno Klami Society is saying the premiere was 1 December 1933. The newspapers from that date, too, say "first performance" ... but so does the newspaper from 9 February that I found. Perhaps the suite was scheduled for February but was then cancelled?

Intermediate version (1934)
Lemminkäinen's Island Adventures (Lemminkäisen seikkailut saaressa), a symphonic poem for orchestra written in 1934, was Klami's first attempt at composing a central scherzo for the Kalevala Suite. However, he later removed the piece from the suite and made an independent work. It is based on Runo XXIX of the Kalevala.

Instrumentation
The Kalevala Suite is scored for the following instruments, organized by family (woodwinds, brass, percussion, and strings):


 * 1 piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 1 cor anglais, 2 clarinets (in B♭), 1 bass clarinet (in B♭), 2 bassoons, and 1 contrabassoon
 * 4 horns (in F), 4 trumpets (in B♭), 3 trombones, and 1 tuba
 * Timpani, bass drum, snare drum, xylophone (Movement III only), cymbals, triangle, tam-tam, and tubular bells ("campana"; Movement V only)
 * Violins (I and II), violas, cellos, double basses, and harp

Structure and music


The Kalevala Suite is in five movements, of which Nos. 1–2 and 4–5 were written completed by 1933; No. 3 was added in 1943: 1. The Creation of the Earth (Maan synty). Agitato e misterioso

2. The Spout of Spring (Kevään oras). Andante, molto tranquillo

3. Terhenniemi. Allegro, leggiero e scherzando

4. Cradle Song for Lemminkäinen (Kehtolaulu Lemminkäiselle). Andante mosso

5. The Forging of the Sampo (Sammon taonta). Allegro moderato

Movement I is based on Runo I, which describes the formation of the earth out of chaotic beginnings.

Movement II is based on Runo II, in which the legendary hero Väinämöinen sows a seed, which sprouts from the earth and grows blossoms.

Movement III, which is not based on a particular runo, is a mythical atmosphere is created by frolicsome dance rhythms.

Movement IV is based on Runo XV, in which Lemminkäinen's mother sings this mournful song to her son, whom she has rescued from the river of Tuonela and brought back to life by magic.

Movement V is based on Runo X, in which the blacksmith Ilmarinen forges the sampo, a marvelous magical instrument, the exact nature of which continues to mystify scholars. It was a fabulous national treasure to the ancient Finnish folk of the Kalevala. .

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Central place in Klami's oeuvre
The Kalevala Suite is the most enduringly popular and oft-recorded composition in Klami's oeuvre.

Relation to Sibelius's Kalevala compositions
The Kalevala was a source of inspiration for many Finnish composer who preceded Klami.

Klami sought to approach the Kalevala from a perspective that would differ that of Jean Sibelius, his predecessor whom Klami thought had "reigned supreme in the domain".

Discography
The table below lists commercially available recordings:

Notes, references, and sources

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 * Websites and newspapers