Now for something completely different! There have been various attempts at getting orchestral musicians out of their tails and white ties and making them converse with musicians from an altogether different idiom. This collaboration between the Lahti Symphony Orchestra under Maestro Osmo Vänskä with Finland's leading Jazz trio and the phenomenal violin-playing Kuusisto brothers sets new standards for this type of cross-over production, however. Despite centuries of occupation by the orderly and dour Swedes, Finland has preserved its own very special soul. From Sibelius onwards, Finnish composers and performers have succeeded in being idiosyncratically original and yet somehow part of the mainstream of music at one and the same time. Perhaps the Finnish tango helps to explain the special quality of Finnish musical life. For the Finnish tango is a genuine, modern folk music providing an idiom which is open to all musicians and which thus establishes a common musical culture. So that even the most staid orchestral musicians have this "folk" music in the blood. Perhaps that is why these different idioms marry so very happily on this disc. This is a CD that it is simply impossible not to enjoy!
