Linda Hedlund: Finnish Works for Violin and Orchestra

The Strad Issue: February 2026

Description: A most attractive journey into lesser-known Finland

Musicians: Linda Hedlund (violin) La Tempesta Orchestra/József Hárs

Works: Fougstedt: Concertino for violin and orchestra. Merikanto: Violin Concerto no.4; works by Englund, Haapalainen, Palmgren and Raitio

Catalogue number: NAXOS 8579185

Most of the works on here, a sort of sampler of 20th-century Finnish music, are world-premiere recordings, of which Aarre Merikanto’s three-movement Fourth Violin Concerto of 1954 is the most substantial piece. Linda Hedlund provides clean playing of the angular dotted rhythms in the opening Allegro, with some neatly dispatched ricochet bowing along the way. The anguished lyrical soliloquies of the central Largo have tonal warmth and a rich vibrato, and Hedlund plays the cheery final Allegro giosamente (not a word you often see) with style and élan.

She opens with Selim Palmgren’s 1944 Concert Fantasy – the second longest work here – an entertaining virtuoso showpiece mixing dance and melodic musing with passages of rhythmic vitality, all of which are played with colour and personality. In the opening Largamente of Nils-Eric Fougstedt’s 1955 Concertino the contrasting motifs, some severe, some discursive, with fluttering double-stops, are played with sure-footed shifts of colour. There is nicely shaped lyrical playing in the central Andante and jolly dancing in the final Allegro ritmico.

Väinö Raitio’s Legenda is dramatic and colourful, and seems full of urgent stories, and his Notturno has nicely shaped weaving lines amid wistful, slow-moving harmonies. The brief Näky (‘Vision’) by Väinö Haapalainen has charm and occasional urgency. Hedlund is ably partnered by La Tempesta Orchestra under József Hárs.

TIM HOMFRAY