Aarre Merikanto's career divided broadly into three phases, those of apprentice, radical and conservative, and there are works from each present on this valuable issue. Critical hindsight accords (quite rightly) that the brief radical phase, roughly corresponding to the 1920s, was the most valuable, though at the time Merikanto's modernistic approach – and that of his likeminded contemporaries, Ernest Pingoud and Väinö Raito – was derided. Only one piece here represents this period, the highly accomplished tone-poem, Pan (1924), a wonderful, evocative, yet robust score, possessed of a very Nordic brand of impressionism. Lemminkä­inen (1916), by contrast, seems immature, and rather parochial.
A Sibelian shadow lies heavily across its quarter-hour duration, yet without a trace of the older composer's own Lemminkäinen tonepoems.
There's little of the latter's emotional and psychological depth – or musical range – but instead a prevailing rollicking good humour broken occasionally by more serious moments.
The remaining works all date from the early stages of Merikanto's post-modern period, when he reverted to a simpler, more accessible idiom. The Four Compositions (1932) make a very effective and satisfying set, and whereas the Andante religioso (1933) seems like a piece out of context, the Scherzo (1937) is entirely convincing on its own. The performances are sympathetic and well recorded.