The piece was lost in Germany during the "chaos"[3]World War II, prompting Klami to rewrite it in 1944 based on his original sketches.[4][2] Around this time, Klami renamed the overture Linna meren äärellä[5] (The Fortress on the Sea), but this name has never stuck.[2] The second version of the overture was premiered on 15 December 1944. The music critic Sulho Ranta argued that, although "the thematic material... [had] not greatly changed" between versions, "the revision [had] proved to be to the work's advantage".[2][a]
On 29 September 1950 in celebration of Klami's fiftieth birthday, Jussi Jalas and the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra performed the overture. It shared the program with Klami's most famous work, the Kalevala Suite (Op. 23, 1933; r. 1934, 1943), and the Second Piano Concerto (Op. 41, 1950), which received its premiere.[1]
Discography
The sortable table below lists the three commercially available recordings of Suomenlinna:
^Sulho Ranta's review is quoted, without precise attribution, in the liner notes to BIS–CD–696. Ranta (1901–1960)—an exact contemporary of Klami's who, too, had studied composition at the Helsinki Music Institute under Erkki Melartin—likely penned this review for Ilta-Sanomat, for which he wrote under the pseudonym 'Särrä' from 1933 to 1957. (In 1944, the paper would have still been the afternoon edition of Helsingin Sanomat, rather than an independent publication.)
Aho, Kalevi (1997). Uuno Klami: Whirls, Act I / Violin Concerto / Suomenlinna (CD booklet). Osmo Vänskä & Lahti Symphony Orchestra. BIS. CD–696. OCLC40569371
Korhonen, Kimmo (1998). Uuno Klami: Kalevala Suite / Sea Pictures / Lemminkäinen's Adventures on the Island of Saari (CD booklet). Jorma Panula & Turku Philharmonic Orchestra. Naxos. 8.553757. OCLC40795112