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Cover: Joonas Kokkonen – Cello Concerto · Symphonies Nos. 3 & 4

Joonas Kokkonen

Cello Concerto

Symphonies Nos. 3 & 4

Marko Ylönen, cello
Finnish RSO
Sakari Oramo, conductor

ODE 1098-2 · CD · October 2007

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Track listing

12 tracks · 61:49

Listen to samples on selected tracks.

Joonas Kokkonen

  1. Cello Concerto (1969) 22:03
  2. 1 I. Moderato mosso - Allegro 7:23
  3. 2 II. Allegretto 3:12
  4. 3 III. Adagio 6:06
  5. 4 IV. Cadenza (Adagio) 3:28
  6. 5 V. Allegro vivace 2:05
  7. Symphony No. 3 (1967) 17:45
  8. 6 I. Andante sostenuto 5:12
  9. 7 II. Allegro 3:10
  10. 8 III. Allegretto moderato 3:14
  11. 9 IV. Adagio 6:09
  12. Symphony No. 4 (1971) 21:50
  13. 10 I. Moderato 8:20
  14. 11 II. Allegro 5:52
  15. 12 III. Adagio 7:38

About this recording

This disc features major works of Finnish composer Joonas Kokkonen (1921-1996) - the dominating figure in post-war Finnish music after the death of Jean Sibelius in 1957. It is the first volume of two releases featuring the complete symphonies, as well as Cello Concerto and Opus sonorum. The featured works were written between 1967 and 1971 during the composer's late "neo-Romantic" period of free tonality. Kokkonen linked himself to the symphonic tradition of Brahms and Sibelius.

The Cello Concerto, with its profound central Adagio movement, is a gem in concerto literature and probably the most-performed cello concerto by any Finnish composer. It features soloist Marko Ylönen, who specializes in contemporary repertoire. Previous recordings with chief conductor Sakari Oramo and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra include a Lindberg disc (ODE 1038-2) which won both a Classic FM Gramophone Award and a BBC Music Magazine Award in 2006 (Best Contemporary / Best Première).

Features

Booklet with liner notes in English, German, French and Finnish

Press

(...) Finland's most significant composer after Sibelius at his most mature and characteristic. (...) this new Ondine (recording) boasts wonderful performances and vivid recorded sound.
Mark Lehman, American Record Guide, July/August 2008

(The Fourth Symphony) gets the adrenalin rushing and the tears flowing. It's a masterful piece of writing which, along with the Cello Concerto, makes this a must-have disc.
Jerry Dubins, Fanfare Magazine, July/August 2008

Kokkonen's three finest orchestral scores in superlative readings.
Guy Rickards, Gramophone, April 2008

The incorruptable Finnish RSO performs (...) with such an implicitness and dedication, as if the music was a Beethoven Symphony. It couldn't be bettered.
Alain Steffen, Pizzicato, March 2008, Supersonic Award

This emotionally and technically utterly dense and finely honed music could not sound more strikingly powerful and coloured than here. Oramo and his musicians deliver a sublime rendition.
Tobias Pfleger, klassik.com, January 17, 2008

Kokkonen deserves better international recognition than he has hitherto received. (...) His Cello Concerto, stylistically somewhere between Shostakovich and Walton, is a masterpiece of craft and lyricism: that is certainly the impression given by Marko Ylönen with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra.
Andrew Clark, Financial Times, December 1-2, 2007

This terrific disc belongs in every serious collection.
David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com, October 2007, Artistic Quality 10 / Sound Quality 10

The artists

Marko Ylönen

Marko Ylönen studied the cello with Csaba Szilvay at the East Helsinki Music Institute, with Erkki Rautio and Heikki Rautasalo at the Sibelius Academy and with Heinrich Schiff in Basel. Ylönen made the final round of the Turku Cello Competition at the age of fifteen. He received second prize in the Nordic Cello Competition in Turku in 1990 and a prize in the Tchaikovsky competition in Moscow in the same year. In spring 1996, he won the Concert Artist Guild competition in New York.

Full biography

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