LOTTA WENNÄKOSKI (b.1970): Soie for Flute and Orchestra, Hava, Amor Omnia Suite.

Description: Wennäkoski's music shares some features with that of Kaija Saariaho, with whom she studied, in the close attention paid by the composer to sonority and the translucent, fluid textures that result from it. Soie - Silk - is a three-movement flute concerto, in which the first movement evokes a billowing sail, forming solidly defined yet constantly fluctuating shapes. The second movement is an earthier scherzo, 'rough linen', in which noise textures are incorporated into the instrumental fabric. The third movement is active, flowing, but in softer, more muted textures than the previous movements. The solo writing is virtuosic throughout, the ensemble textures scintillating and effervescent. Hava is a lightweight, capricious scherzo, in lively, rustling textures 'like leaves falling to the ground', with a fragile, calmer second part in harmonics and ethereal glissandi. Amor Omnia is a 1922 silent film, a tragic love story, for which Wennäkoski was commissioned to write a new score, from which this suite was extracted and adapted by the composer. The music is atmospheric and subtle, with whispered vocalisations and predominantly gentle, flowing masses of sound, sometimes overlain with melodic or harmonically sumptuous passages or interjections that sound as though borrowed from fragments of a late romantic work, which also seems to have supplied material for the work's infrequent, but shattering, climaxes. Kersten McCall (flute), Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra; Dima Slobodeniouk.