Music for a wayfarer

The parkland surrounding Schloss Eggenberg, yesterday 22.10. Note the warm weather.

I can't say I'm very home-sick yet, but often it's a piece of music which makes me feel like I'm in a different galaxy millions of light-years away from Finland. At sentimental times like this, I find it therapeutic to listen to more of these "tear-wrenching" pieces - sooner or later they bring me back to this planet! Here is a sample of the pieces I mean:

Jean Sibelius: 1st symphony - particularly 2nd movement Andante
Once again, Sibelius is from FINLAND – not Denmark, Iceland, Norway or even Russia. And this haunting movement sounds like something out of a dream of the best country in the world. (For all my readers abroad – don’t take me too seriously). The last movement is preferably listened to at full blast. It’s time the neighbours got to know some decent music anyway.

Ultra Bra: Helsinki-Vantaa
First of all, it’s a song about the most welcoming airport in the world. Second of all, it can’t help but dispel those veils of home-sickness! And last but not least, the story is told in that funny self-irony so characteristic of Finnish people (subjective interpretation), it reminds me that HEL has been where it is now for 54 years and it’s not going anywhere!

Johannes Brahms: An die Heimat
An odd bird in this list in that Brahms was NOT Finnish, this pretty short piece for four voices (choir or solo quartet? The debate rages on!) with piano accompaniment (not one of Brahms’ most imaginative ones, by the way), “An die Heimat” is nevertheless a strong item in the list of any home-sick person’s music library.

Vocal group Rajaton: Iltavirsi
Rajaton is not one of my favourite a cappella groups, but this beautiful piece taken from their album of sacred music “Sanat” is spooky enough to give me the creeps. The melody, a simple short evening hymn, is enough to bring memories from years gone by flooding back, and Rajaton’s arrangement manages to portray childlike naïveté with a somber, even claustrophobic, undertone.

Toivo Kuula: Siell’ on kauan jo kukkineet omenapuut
Instructions for listening to this:
Think of the people and the things you miss most at home.
Stop everything you are doing.
Press play.