The Creation of the Earth (Maan synty): Agitato e misterioso ‹ The Sprout of Spring (Keväan oras): Andante, molto tranquillo Terhenniemi: Allegro, leggiero e scherzando Cradle Song for Lemminkäinen (Kehtolaulu Lemminkäiselle: Andante mosso The Forging of the Sampo (Sammon taonta): Allegro moderato

Like Jean Sibelius before him, Finnish composer Uuno Klami (1900-1961) was attracted to the national epic The Kalevala. Klami actually studied it closely only after he had left Finland to study music in Paris with Florent Schmidt and Maurice Ravel. Initially, he planned to write an opera on it, then an oratorio, or a ballet. Ultimately he wrote this major orchestral suite, and a spin-off, "Lemminkäinen¹s Island Adventure," which was composed in 1934 to fill a need for a scherzo movement in the 1933 original version of the suite.

Listeners who are familiar with Sibelius¹s tone poems on Kalevalan subjects will likely find this suite intriguing. Some of Klami¹s orchestral devices, particular long-held tremolandos on the strings, are common in Sibelius¹s music. But Klami¹s music is harmonically very different and tends to use the brighter colors of French Impressionism, and sometimes the rhythmic power of the Stravinsky of "Rite of Spring."

The atmospheric first movement uses the same text as Sibelius¹s great tone poem/song "Luonnotar." Unlike Sibelius¹s moody piece, Klami¹s depiction is a great blazing crescendo. The second movement is lyrical. The third movement was added in the course of the 1943 revision of the suite, and finally filled the need for a scherzo movement. The title only indicates a mood of a landscape portrait and does not describe any action from the epic. It is an exquisite, dancing piece.

The "Cradle Song" is a melancholy song, where Lemminkäinen¹s mother sings his cradle song while kneeling by his corpse. (This episode is also in Sibelius¹s "Lemminkäinen Suite" which goes on to depict the hero¹s revival by his mother¹s magic.) The final movement depicts the creation of the Sampo, a magical object that most of the characters in the Kalevala are out to get. Here Stravinskian rhythms depict the powerful effort required to make it.

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