HEINO KASKI (1885-1957): Night by the Sea, Op. 34/1, Girl in a Rose Garden, Op. 24/1, Mountain Gnomes Play at Eventide, Op. 15/1, Forest Calm, Op. 25/2, Folk Song, Op. 27/3, Summer Night, Op. 38/1, Idyll, Op. 10/4, Poem, Op. 46/2, Dream Reflection, Op. 27/1, Buresque, Op. 322, Evening in Venice, Op. 15/2, Lullaby, Op. 17/3, Fairy at the Fountain, Op. 19/2, Autumn Dawn, Op. 21/2, Song without Words, Op. 24/2, Night Mood, Op. 14/3, Mournful Song, Op. 32/4, Preludes in G Flat, Op. 7/1, in C, Op. 46/1 and in B Minor, Op. 48/1.

Description: Gloriously and unrepentantly old fashioned, these delightful miniatures would certainly have been wildly popular had they actually been written when it sounds as though they were - rather more than a century ago, around the time of the composer's birth. Consistently of high pianistic quality - the piano writing is exquisite and entirely tonal, they frequently recall the Grieg of the Lyric Pieces, and his descendants, like MacDowell in his atmospheric miniatures. From time to time there are flashes of Lisztian or Rachmaninovian bravura (Pankakoski Storm is the Rachmaninov Prelude that isn't), alongside the effortless singing quality of the melodic lines, and sometimes the harmonic flavour reflects some Russian influence from across the border, or impressionist warmth from the south; Chopin is a constant background (and sometimes foreground) presence. Pianophiles with a taste for Romanticism will relish these pieces, and may safely regard the actual chronology of their composition as an irrelevant accident. Janne Mertanen (piano).