The Savonlinna Opera Festival took a break from the stage and brought in the YL Male Voice Choir and the Tapiola Choir for a concert of Finnish choral music.
The Castle in the Water, Sallinen's new “chronicle”, is a new work of innovative beauty. Tragic, comic and epic, in seventy-five minutes it tells the history of Olavinlinna and gives a snap-shot of those connected to it.
McFall's Chamber was full of surprises exploring 20th century music from the Baltic. The Finns' love affair with the Tango contrasted with passionate brooding Baltic landscapes – and there was a saw.
Roulette has never looked so snazzy: the usual dishevelled hipsters were replaced by well-dressed audience members of all ages, wearing heels rather than flannel, drinking from wine glasses rather than beer bottles.
In Scotland, where the word 'Baltic' functions as a colloquial substitute for 'extremely cold', it's odd to come across a programme on this theme in August. Fans of the ensemble Mr. McFall's Chamber delight in such idiosyncrasies and would not be thrown to find an embrace of tangos at the programme's heart. That there were Finnish tangos might be a surprise.
I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from the Kronos Quartet’s ‘Musical Meditation on the Anniversary of 9/11’, the centrepiece of their week-long Barbican residency. Especially, I must confess, when I learned that the recital would feature a children’s choir. There was a chance, I thought, that this would be taking things slightly too far.
