Terhi Paldanius - Juha Leinonen: Chamber Works (2020)

The fresh new release from Alba Records presents three pieces by the Finnish composer Juha Leinonen performed by world-class artists. The booklet addresses the link between different kinds of art forms as it contains a beautiful painting Landscape in a Landscape (2006) by a fellow Finn, Kuutti Lavonen. The German early romantics thought that because music, painting and poetry at their best constitute a higher poetic tongue, they cannot be described using the inadequate conceptual repertoire of normal language. Only an artwork can explain another artwork. The most perfect musical composition of all is the most perfect description of the most magnificent painted masterpiece.

Juha Leinonen (b. 1956) studied with Jouni Kaipainen and Esko Syvinki in Tampere and in masterclasses with Magnus Lindberg and others. He has composed works in most of the Western Classical genres: for solo instruments, chamber music, concertos, chamber and orchestral works and vocal music (solo songs and repertoire for all types of choir); his early output also includes works for the stage. His style ranges from complex, motoric and rhythmically throbbing to serene lyricism, and selectively incorporates influences from as far back as the Baroque. Leinonen’s compositional techniques vary from a precisely structured command of material to a freer, inherently musical, aesthetically unfettered mode of expression.

Music by Leinonen has been performed both in Finland and abroad, at chamber and orchestral concerts, many Finnish festivals, on the radio, and at focus concerts in partnership with the Avanti! Chamber Orchestra and others. He has collaborated with many top Finnish musicians and had works premiered by Otto Virtanen (bassoon), Joonas Ahonen (piano), Sami Junnonen (flute), Sirkka Lamminen (soprano) and Olli Leppäniemi (clarinet).

Leinonen has won prizes in a number of competitions, such as the Uussävel run jointly by the Society of Finnish Composers and the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival 2002 (Foga), the Uussävel competition of the Society of Finnish Composers and the Lahti Organ Festival 2005 (Lux Aeterna) and the Seinäjoki International Chamber Music Festival 2008 – II International Chamber Music Composition Competition 2009 (Frieze), where it shared the first prize.

Olli Leppaniemi, clarinet, bass clarinet
Terhi Paldanius, violin
Jukka Untamala, violin
Antti Tikkanen, viola
Tomas Nunez-Garces, cello
Roope Grondahl, piano