Songs: ニュルント(S)リュドマン(Br)

Yrjo Kilpinen was not strictly speaking a Finnish nationalist. He identified more strongly with German culture and had much of his success in Germany, championed especially by the baritone Gerhard Husch in the 1930s. Yet near the end of his life he turned to the folk culture of his native land, producing the massive song cycle 'Kanteletar' in 1953-54. The 26 songs filling this CD represent less than half of the cycle, which sets Finnish folk texts in an almost encyclopedic fashion, with whole groups of songs devoted to village and family life, the romantic pursuits of shepherds, lamenting dirges, and other topics.
The songs on this disc have been selected for contrast and variety; two native Finnish speakers, Camilla Nylund and Hans Lydman, alternate in wrapping their voices around the sometimes strange music inherent in the language. Kilpinen's music has an affinity to the neo-folkloric pursuits of other modernist composers; the settings are often spare, with minimal and repetitive accompaniment. Kilpinen uses the scales and harmonic modes of Finnish music, and simple strophic and ternary forms, but doesn't borrow actual melodies, and while he wanted to document a fading culture, he never paints an over-romanticized pretty picture of rural Finnish life.