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What I have experienced multiple times with Tapiola Sinfonietta and with Pekka Kuusisto, and today with both, is that no matter how high your expectations are, these players will always outperform them.

Last Sunday, Pekka Kuusisto performed in Siuntio, a Finnish town not so far from Helsinki, as part of the Lux Musicae Festival, together with pianist Joonas Ahonen and hornist Hervé Joulain. In the penumbra of the candles and the gentle lights of a beautiful church from the 1400s, the first notes of Brahms’ Violin Sonata in G major resounded. Kuusisto’s sound is all about the power of simplicity.

Tenor Joseph Calleja, conductor Giuliano Carella and the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra presented an interesting choice of repertoire on Monday. The composers were celebrated Italian and French masters of opera, and the programme alternated between overtures for orchestra and arias starring Calleja.

In accordance with clichés about prima donnas, Nigel Kennedy’s concert at the Musiikkitalo in Helsinki starts 15 minutes after the lights have faded away in the hall. The Nigel Kennedy Quintet enters and its leader makes a couple of jokes to break the ice.

If you move in academic, corporate or philanthropic circles, you will certainly have attended speeches and lectures about leadership, or come across relevant literature about it. Well, if you were in the Helsinki Music Center’s Concert Hall at 5pm last Saturday, you’d be sure that attending the previous week’s rehearsals would have saved you the need for leadership books and conferences.

When it comes to new music, the parameters by which we usually observe classical musicians often fade away. In this case we are speaking about eight cellists, and given this program, it would be of little use to comment on the purity of their sound. Tonight’s scores, in fact, frequently required the sound to be pierced and dirty.