My favourite Finnish choral works

This is a top three list which is, naturally, subject to changes. But, if I needed to pick three Finnish songs for choir to take with me to a deserted island, they would probably be:

1. Toivo Kuula: Siell' on kauan jo kukkineet omenapuut (V.A.Koskenniemi)
A piece practically anybody in Finland who has ever had anything to with choral music in his whole life should know by heart, this smash hit of Toivo Kuula was composed in 1908. Kuula's choral work is very extensive and varied; some might argue the harmonies and music are straight from the other side of the eastern border but the texts he used are Finnish to the bone, and "omenapuut" with its utter longing and desperation is no exception.
The hearer is gripped from the very beginning as the tenors begin their lament, after which the other voices gradually swim in. The apple trees are already in bloom and the birds are singing, but our narrator is unable to reach them. The women voices lead the choir into the ultimate wish of the poem: for winter to come and snow to cover everything up again so the narrator would have piece again, and the very last minor chord must be one of the most tragic and haunting moments in Finnish music.
This piece is currently number 1 on the "top listened to"-list on my iPod.

2. Leevi Madetoja: Suvi-illan vieno tuuli (Eino Leino)
It's impossible to separate Finnish national romantic music and male choirs - these two just belong together, and one could argue that the repertoire available for male choirs in Finland is among the best and varied in the world. And as for romantic nationalism, it doesn't come any better than music by Madetoja (1887-1947) set to Leino's (1878-1926) text.
Composed at a time when Finnish people were struggling to establish their own identity, "Suvi-ilta" seems to underline the essential connection between man and nature. It's all about a silent wanderer listening to the far-away hoot of a bird, feeling the gentle evening breeze on his face and trodding onwards in a forest which is given an almost spiritual element in the music. "Mielen myrsky nukkuu": "The storm of the mind sleeps" - an incredible example of portraying silence with music, and what better instrument for that than a translucent and clean male choir. Time just stops.

3. Einojuhani Rautavaara: Die erste Elegie (Rainer Maria Rilke)
Thank God for Rautavaara's choral music. It's fresh, exciting and vibrant, and (you might have guessed) at parts insanely difficult, ranging from Biblical texts and large-scale works (Rautavaara's Vigilia is in every way comparable to that of Rachmaninoff) to secular music like this 10-minute work to the German text of Rilke.
Indeed, "Die erste Elegie" is hardly a piece of cake to be sung by any choir of the firemen, nannies and elementary school teachers of Northeastern Siberia.
This is a song I discovered fairly recently. Frankly, I was sort of apprehensive of listening to such a long piece without getting to know the score and the text first, but after pressing "play" I've realised there's something pretty captivating and downright spooky about the music, starting right at the haunting first bars of descending minor chords of the discant voices and ending in a jubilant yet somehow restrained major section.
I still haven't got the score or analysed the text. Somehow the images the music paints are compelling in themselves and I'd like to wait a while before I start staring at the music, because, after all, shouldn't music be so good that we would love it even though the composer had never put it down in notes?