Sallinen: Barabbas Dialogues, Op. 84

Albumbeschreibung

Aulis Sallinen turned 70 in 2005, and Barabbas Dialogues is one of his later pieces, composed in 2002 and 2003. Sallinen was one of the first composers who came of age in the era of the so-called "International Style," only to ultimately turn his back on the "dreaded system," and he did so without the benefit of minimalist techniques. As such, Sallinen is one of the godfathers of early twenty-first century European composition, and every new Sallinen work is an event, with CPO's Barabbas Dialogues representing the debut on disc of a particularly good one. Barabbas Dialogues was inspired by the new Finnish edition of the Holy Bible, the first clear translation of the original biblical texts not compromised by the influence of piety so common to Christian churches in Nordic lands. Although the New Testament has little to say about Barabbas, the condemned prisoner liberated by the crowd that sent Jesus Christ to his crucifixion, Sallinen and his collaborator, poet Lassi Nummi, have done a fine job of converting his slight story into a form that is dramatically convincing. "Is Barabbas Dialogues a song cycle, a chamber oratorio, a cantata, a piece of musical theater or something else?" wonders the composer aloud in his notes. It is reminiscent of a Brechtian Lehrstück in its occasional dramatic import incorporated within the frame of the "just stand there and sing" mode associated with the cantata. In addition, its economical scoring likewise hearkens back to Kurt Weill -- the band is made up of just two winds, two strings, accordion, piano, and percussion. Nevertheless, this scrawny ensemble sounds uncommonly rich in Sallinen's distinctive scoring, even as his music is texturally so spare. The singing is extraordinarily good in this performance of Barabbas Dialogues. Some of Sallinen's harmonic shifts are sneaky and tend to occur underneath the vocal lines, but this group, headed off by baritone Petteri Salomaa in the title role, manages to roll right along with the ensemble, staying well in tune while negotiating these hair-raising sonorities. The only thing that's not 100 percent with CPO's Barabbas Dialogues is the front cover; from a distance it looks like an iceberg against a gray, wintry sky, certainly not an image that is out of sync with Sallinen's rather chilly approach to musical texture. However, closer inspection reveals the object to be an ice blue, triangle-shaped crumb of broken bread, whose lower right-hand corner assumes the form of a man's face, a "post-modern" and frankly ridiculous trompe d'oeil image. If one can stand to put a roof over this sow's ear of a cover, than one may readily enjoy the silk purse inside.
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