The Kalevala, the Finnish epic poem describing the creation of the world and the journeys and adventures of the people of the land of Kalevala, first appeared in print in 1835; an expanded version, almost twice as long, followed 14 years later. Its appearance proved hugely significant in the development of Finland’s national identity and the country’s progress towards independence (which was eventually achieved in 1917), and its influence on 19th- and 20th-century Finnish artists was immense.
For Sibelius the Kalevala was famously a lifelong source of inspiration, from his earliest large-scale work, Kullervo, to his last, the symphonic poem Tapiola. But he was by no means the only composer to write works based on the epic and the stories it contains, and three of those pieces are brought together in this collection from the Lahti orchestra under their former music director, Dima Slobodaniouk. Inevitably it includes some Sibelius too: the first recording of the 1897 version of Lemminkäinen in Tuonela, fractionally longer than what we know as the third movement of his Lemminkäinen Suite.
