UKARIA 24

CONCERT TWO | CANOPY OF STARS

‘My Sonata for Violin and Piano is a very serious, dramatic and monumental work. In the last movement the piano and the violin start a dialogue consisting partly of quotations from Beethoven’s String Quartet op. 135 (“Muss es sein?”). The music becomes more hopeful and finally finds peace, the violin ascending to heaven, accompanied by a ritualistic dialogue of high and low clusters on the piano. My song cycle The Canopy of Stars is written on poems by Eino Leino, our national poet, a close friend of Sibelius, and also a distant relative of mine – in its end also this work ends up in celestial spheres: “Here it is safe to walk, far away from this world’s wrath…”.

Serenades of the Unicorn is a masterpiece for solo guitar by my dear teacher Einojuhani Rautavaara, and the programme ends with William Walton’s song cycle on anonymous old lyrics on the subject of love, its title Anon in Love typically cheekily coined by the composer himself.’

– Olli Mustonen

Olli Mustonen (b. 1967)
Sonata for Violin and Piano (23')

I. Grave
II. Allegretto
III. Colossale

Kristian Winther | Violin
Olli Mustonen | Piano


Olli Mustonen (b. 1967)
Tähtitarha (The Canopy of Stars): Four Songs on Poems by Eino Leino for Flute and Piano (10')

I. Yli metsän koitti jo päivän koi (Over the Woods the Daylight Dawned)
II. Pyhät on pihlajat pihalla (Holy are the Rowan Trees)
III. Yökehrääjä (Nighty Purring)
IV. Tähtitarha (The Canopy of Stars)

Janne Thomsen | Flute
Olli Mustonen | Piano


Einojuhani Rautavaara (1865–1957)
Serenades of the Unicorn (7')

I. A Nervous Promenade and Dance (With His Own Reflection)
II. Serenading a Pair of Giggly Nymphs (Drunk of Night)
III. Serenading the Beauty Inobtainable (Too Far in Time)
IV. Having a Grand Time (With Some Scythian Centaurs) 

Ismo Eskelinen | Guitar


William Walton (1902–1983)
Anon in Love (10')

I. Fain would I change that note
II. O stay, sweet love
III. Lady, when I behold the roses
IV. My love in her attire
V. I have her cakes and I gave her ale
VI. To couple is a custom


Robin Tritschler | Tenor
Ismo Eskelinen | Guitar