Madetoja: Symphony No. 2, Kullervo: Elegy

To be an orchestral composer in Finland as a contemporary of Sibelius and nevertheless create an independent composer profile was no mean feat, but Leevi Madetoja managed it. Though even he was not completely immune to the influence of his great colleague, he did find a voice for himself where the elegiac nature of the landscape and folk songs of his native province of Ostrobothnia merged with a French elegance. Madetoja’s three symphonies did not follow the trail blazed by Sibelius, and another mark of his independence as a composer is that his principal works include two operas, Pohjalaisia (The Ostrobothnians, 1924) and Juha (1935), a genre that Sibelius never embraced.