PERTTI JALAVA (b.1960): Concerto for Piano, Flute and String Orchestra, Like a Sigh and Surface (Fantasias Nos. 1 & 2 for String Orchestra), In the Wind for Flute and String Orchestra.

Description: These pieces share a readily appealing, directly communicative quality; the composer's idiom is firmly tonal and his works have a neoclassical elegance with hints of jazz inflections (he also composes for his own jazz ensemble, a parallel career that shows itself in his choice of harmonies and a freewheeling energy and rhythmic vitality rather than self-consciously 'crossover' type writing. The concerto has echoes of Stravinsky, Shostakovich and Poulenc, while the two fantasias for string orchestra evoke landscape and nature music - stylized, but unmistakable shiftings of light and shadow, undulations of cloud and water. In the Wind does the same sort of thing, even more explicitly, seeming to grow from darkness to dawn and incorporating a human element in the form of a curiously formal and elegant dance. Original but approachable without over-familiarity of idiom, these are easy works to enjoy.