KIMMO HAKOLA

Clarinet Concerto, Verdoyances crépuscules for orchestra, Diamond Street for solo clarinet

Kari Kriikku (clarinet)

Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra/ Sakari Oramo

Following the huge success of Magnus Lindberg’s Clarinet Concerto (ODE10382), with outstanding reviews from international press including Editor’s Choice in October Gramophone, Ondine releases a further recording featuring clarinettist Kari Kriikku.

Kimmo Hakola (b. 1958) belongs to the same generation of Finnish composers as Magnus Lindberg, Kaija Saariaho and Esa-Pekka Salonen. The powerful modernism of his early works has remained a central feature of his idiom, but now he adds ethnic material, Hollywood Romanticism and Oriental elements with a strange fascination for klezmer with equal abandon.

The clarinet seems to be particularly capable of sparking Hakola´s innovation, evident in the Clarinet Concerto (2001), for which the solo piece Diamond Street (1999) was a sort of preliminary sketch.

The Clarinet Concerto is a rich and original work lasting some 40 minutes, in four movements. Like Hakola´s earlier works, this too was tailored to the art of Kari Kriikku. Verdoyances crépuscules (2004) was written as a commission for the Finnish Broadcasting Company. Kari Kriikku has established an interesting and versatile career both as a soloist and as a chamber musician. The Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra (FRSO) focuses on contemporary Finnish music and premieres several works commissioned by Finnish Broadcasting every year. Sakari Oramo was appointed conductor in 1994; in autumn 2003, chief conductor.

Ondine ODE10632