Nils Schweckendiek, Jan Lehtola, Helsinki Chamber Choir – Riemuitkaamme! – A Finnish Christmas (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Nils Schweckendiek, Jan Lehtola, Helsinki Chamber Choir – Riemuitkaamme! – A Finnish Christmas (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:13:50 minutes | 1,19 GB | Genre: Choral
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS

Riemuitkaamme! is an imaginative and unconventional selection of choral music associated with Christmas as it is celebrated in Finland. Several of the pieces are by Finnish composers – Sibelius, Rautavaara and Madetoja, to name a few – while others have become part of the Christmas traditions of the country despite their international background. Among these Berlioz’ The Shepherds’ Farewell and Tchaikovsky’s Christ, when a Child… are quite late additions compared to the medieval hymns Puer natus in Bethlehem, Ecce novum gaudium and Angelus emittitur. All three of these were included in the collection Piae cantiones from 1582, the oldest Finnish music publication. Here, they are performed in settings by various composers from different countries and eras – forming a kind of soundtrack of Christmases past and present, distant and close. Contemporary music forms an important part of the activities of the Helsinki Chamber Choir and Nils Schweckendiek, and true to form, the team includes a world premiere recording in their celebrations: Aattoilta, by the Canadian-born composer Matthew Whittall.

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Helsinki Chamber Choir, Nils Schweckendiek – Saariaho: Reconnaissance (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Helsinki Chamber Choir, Nils Schweckendiek – Saariaho: Reconnaissance (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:21:32 minutes | 1,39 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS

This recording presents Kaija Saariaho’s works for choir, a cappella and with electronics, and displays her virtuosity in the treatment of texts, which she endows with the full range of verbal expression. At least one of these works is also a discographic premières.

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Helsinki Chamber Choir, Nils Schweckendiek – Reconnaissance (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Helsinki Chamber Choir, Nils Schweckendiek – Reconnaissance (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:21:32 minutes | 1,39 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS

This recording presents Kaija Saariaho’s works for choir, a cappella and with electronics, and displays her virtuosity in the treatment of texts, which she endows with the full range of verbal expression. At least one of these works is also a discographic premières. Nuits, adieux, presented here both in its a cappella version and with electronics, could be described as a lullaby, not so much for a sleeping child as for an elderly person sleeping out of our world. Funny and very serious at the same time, Horloge, tais-toi was conceived for a children choir. Écho! deals with the myth of Echo and Narcissus, with the idea of echo being naturally extended with electronics that process and reverb the voices of the singers. Based on poems by German poet Friedrich Hölderlin, Tags des Jahrs display an archaic choral treatment expanded by sounds of the human voices, birds, wind and other natural phenomena. Überzeugung engages with medieval music and treats the contrast between light and dark as a trance-like interplay between past and present. Finally, Reconnaissance can be seen as a ‘science-fiction madrigal’. Nils Schweckendiek and the Helsinki Chamber Choir initially performed this programme in concert in August 2022 as part of the celebrations surrounding Saariaho’s 70th birthday.

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Nils Schweckendiek, Helsinki Chamber Choir – Rautavaara: Vigilia (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Nils Schweckendiek, Helsinki Chamber Choir – Rautavaara: Vigilia (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:10:34 minutes | 1,12 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS

In 1971, Einojuhani Rautavaara was asked to compose a Finnish Orthodox church service, an all-night vigil similar to that of Rachmaninov, comprising Vespers as well as Matins. Soon after the first performance he reshaped the music into what we now know as Vigilia, a concert version forming a musical whole. As his inspiration, Rautavaara has himself described a visit to the Valamo monastery in the middle of Lake Ladoga in 1939: ‘The bells began to ring, low-pitched booms and higher, shrill clinks: the world was filled with sounds and colors…’ The music is marked by dark colors, the heady smell of incense and the crepuscular church lit only by small candles. Divided into two parts, Vespers and Matins, the 70-minute work consists of 34 sections, and features prominent parts for a bass and a tenor soloist, as well as a number of solo voices emerging from the mixed choir. The work is enriched by the constantly changing combinations of choir and soloists, the perspective shifting from the personal to the universal. It is here performed by the 21-strong Helsinki Chamber Choir, under its artistic director Nils Schweckendiek – a team that has made several recordings for BIS in recent years. These include Riemuitkaamme!, a Christmas album (‘Schweckendiek’s immaculately blended singers make a glorious noise’, The Arts Desk), as well as a two-album survey of the choral works of Finnish modernist Erik Bergman (‘The Helsinki choir produces a radiant sound throughout’, Choir & Organ).

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Helsinki Chamber Choir & Nils Schweckendiek – Kevät kerran on koittava (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Helsinki Chamber Choir & Nils Schweckendiek – Kevät kerran on koittava (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 53:11 minutes | 908 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS

From a 21st-century perspective, Sibelius may appear to stand more or less alone in the history of Finnish music. It is easy to forget that he could not have fulfilled his artistic potential if his environment had not been conducive to musical creativity. But much of the music that was part of that environment has been almost completely forgotten, often because its aesthetic didn’t accord with the prevailing nationalist trends of the late 19th century. In this programme of choral works, Nils Schweckendiek and his Helsinki Chamber Choir guide us through some 80 years of Finnish music for choir, from the period when the country formed part of the Russian Empire, as the Grand Duchy of Finland. It was during this time that a Finnish nationalist movement began to take form, in opposition towards the political and cultural dominance of Russia and Sweden respectively. This development can be traced in the way the idea of Spring – a staple in the songs of the Nordic countries – changes from a sense of joy at the end to the hardships of winter to a metaphor for liberation from political oppression. Another result was the Fennicization towards the end of the 19th century, during which many popular Swedish and German-language songs were translated into Finnish and the originals in effect suppressed – a case in point being the earliest piece on the disc, F. A. Ehrström’s Svanen (The Swan, 1833), which has had it’s original Swedish text restored for this recording.

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Helsinki Chamber Choir & Nils Schweckendiek – Haapanen: Reports (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Helsinki Chamber Choir & Nils Schweckendiek – Haapanen: Reports (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:05:06 minutes | 627 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS

Playful and with an acute ear for the full range of possibilities of the human voice, Perttu Haapanen has established himself as one of the most exploratory and intellectually curious composers of vocal music active in the Nordic countries. His output includes works for a wide variety of musical formations, but the human voice is central to much of it. He combines a deep understanding of traditional choral sonority with a modernist fascination for extended techniques and structural rigour and a post-modern interest in the deconstruction of text. In his writing, Haapanen examines the full range of sound production available using the human vocal apparatus. We hear singing, of course, but also whispering, speaking, shouting, Sprechgesang, breathing sounds, whistling, lip smacks, tongue clicks, grunting as well as nasal tone and falsetto. Haapanen’s use of text is also far from traditional: he is as interested in words for their sonic qualities as he is in the meanings they convey, separating them into their individual phonemes or using similar-sounding words in quick succession to create a sonic image. The subject matter explored in these texts is varied, but notable in a number of Haapanen’s works is his interest in the themes of playfulness and of childhood – although not necessarily the innocent variety. The Helsinki Chamber Choir has a diverse repertoire, as shown on its previous, acclaimed discs for BIS which range from late Renaissance Christmas hymns via 19th-century Finnish songs to spring to 20th-century modernism. Particularly highly regarded for its work with new music, the choir under its artistic director Nils Schweckendiek here takes the step into the 21st century, and proves its expertise in a highly demanding programme.

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Helsinki Chamber Choir & Nils Schweckendiek – Arvo Pärt: Passio (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Helsinki Chamber Choir & Nils Schweckendiek – Arvo Pärt: Passio (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:11:09 minutes | 1,24 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS

Composed in 1982, Arvo P”art’s Passio has retained its place as one of the foremost works of sacred music of the late 20th century. It has been called a minimalist masterpiece, and is a seminal work in the composer’s oeuvre – the culmination of his so-called tintinnabuli style, and the first in a line of large-scale choral works on religious themes. Passion settings have a long history, with polyphonic settings for choral performance beginning in the 15th century and continuing up until the high baroque and the monumental works by Johann Sebastian Bach.

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Helsinki Chamber Choir & Nils Schweckendiek – Antti Auvinen & Sampo Haapamäki: Choral Works (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Helsinki Chamber Choir & Nils Schweckendiek – Antti Auvinen & Sampo Haapamäki: Choral Works (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:06:06 minutes | 1,14 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alba

This recording presents vocal music by two of the leading Finnish modernist composers of the 1970s generation. Sampo Haapamäki (born 1979) has made a name for himself as an innovator in the area of microtonal music and Antti Auvinen (born 1974) who challenges the boundary between musical sounds and noise, making ”noisy” elements an integral part of its language. There is a particular emphasis on so-called extended techniques (non-conventional methods of sound production: in vocal terms, a whole repertoire of grunts, shouts, squeals and other sounds not usually associated with singing).

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Helsinki Chamber Choir & Nils Schweckendiek – Under the Arching Heavens (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Helsinki Chamber Choir & Nils Schweckendiek – Under the Arching Heavens (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:21:30 minutes | 1,39 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS

The Finnish-American composer Alex Freeman has been described as being ‘as comfortable in the realm of the pop ballad as in that of the concert hall’ and yet his songs ‘are imbued with the craftsmanship and care one would expect of a composer of his formidable academic training, just as his concert works carry the emotional immediacy of popular music.’ Himself a choral singer, Alex Freeman has written a number of works for choir: music that aims to be sonorous and melodic, but is carefully crafted to avoid the clichés that can burden conventional tonality.

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