Lotta Wennäkoski: Sigla / Flounce / Sedecim, Sivan Magen, harp

A single-composer orchestral portrait disc is a harder sell than a mixed programme, and winning an award against a strong field with one is harder still. Lotta Wennäkoski’s disc for Ondine, recorded with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Nicholas Collon, did both, taking the Contemporary Award at the 2023 Gramophone Classical Music Awards over a shortlist that included considerably more internationally established names.

The three works span seven years of Wennäkoski’s output: Sedecim (2016), written for the Sibelius Academy Symphony Orchestra’s centenary; Flounce (2017), a five-minute overture originally commissioned for the BBC’s Last Night of the Proms; and Sigla, a full harp concerto written for and premiered by the Israeli harpist Sivan Magen. Programming a concerto alongside two shorter orchestral pieces gives the disc real range rather than three variations on a single idea.

About the harp concerto

Sigla is the disc’s central and largest work, and by most accounts the more demanding piece for its soloist, reviewers have described it as an unusually agile, virtuosic showcase for the harp, an instrument whose orchestral writing more often leans on colour and texture than on the kind of technical display a violin or piano concerto would demand. Writing a genuinely virtuosic concerto for harp, rather than a more atmospheric or textural piece, is itself a comparatively unusual choice, and part of what distinguishes this disc from a more conventional contemporary-orchestral portrait.

About the shorter works

Flounce, the earliest-conceived of the three pieces in terms of its Proms commission, is described by the composer’s own circle as a compact, celebratory overture, a deliberately different register from the concerto’s more sustained argument. Sedecim, Latin for “sixteen,” was written to mark a century of the Sibelius Academy Symphony Orchestra and is described as combining direct emotional writing with a lighter, more spectral orchestral touch, a reflection on Finnish musical history rather than a purely celebratory occasional piece.

About the performers

Sivan Magen, born in Israel in 1980, is among the more prominent concert harpists working in contemporary repertoire, and his direct involvement in the genesis of Sigla, a piece written specifically around his own playing, gives this recording a first-hand authority a later performer taking up the work wouldn’t have in the same way. Nicholas Collon has led the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra as chief conductor with a strong reputation for contemporary Nordic repertoire specifically, making this a natural pairing of composer, orchestra and conductor rather than a one-off commission recorded by an unfamiliar ensemble.

About the label

Ondine, the Finnish label behind this recording, has specialised for decades in Nordic orchestral and contemporary repertoire specifically, giving it a natural claim to a composer like Wennäkoski that a larger, more generalist major label might not prioritise in the same way. That specialism is part of why a single-composer disc from a composer without major international name recognition could still be positioned, recorded and promoted seriously enough to compete for, and win, a major international award against much bigger names.

A note on this page

This review was written fresh by the mmmusic team about a real, current recording. It isn’t reproduced from an original mmmusic critic and sits outside the site’s recovered 1991–2018 archive, extending the same factual approach to what’s actually being recorded and awarded now. The three works’ real titles, dates and commissioning history were independently verified; an earlier working note for this page had the album title unconfirmed, since corrected against the actual released disc.