With Madetoja's operas, symphonies and songs now decently represented in the catalogue, the time is ripe for his even more rarely heard piano music. It consists almost entirely of miniatures (there are 33 tracks on the two CDs) and most of it dates from the 1910s – the first half of his career. Not conspicuously individual and often somewhat four-square in phrasing, the style feels like an organic continuation of Grieg and Tchaikovsky, enlivened by mildly diverting harmonic and melodic turns. Part of its attraction is an underlying melancholy. One readily agrees, too, with Mika Rännäli's identification of its 'childlike charm, a touch of mischief, wild boisterousness'.
The minority of more extrovert pieces can be quite pianistically demanding without ever qualifying as virtuosic.
By far the most ambitious work is the threemovement cycle Garden of Death. 'One of the best and most poignant works in all Finnish piano literature,' Rännäli calls it, and that proves no overstatement. The austere, elegiac first movement, composed in memory of the composer's brother who was shot by the Red Guard in 1918 during the Finnish Civil War, brings strong echoes of Rachmaninov. It is followed by a volatile and disturbing waltz with an impressive, sombre conclusion, and by a wistful, restless berceuse.
Rännäli has an interesting mixed portfolio. He is not only a composer but also three-times Finnish champion in Latin American and ballroom dancing – a not irrelevant attribute, perhaps, given Madetoja's penchant for minuets, waltzes and gavottes. Live performances these may be but they are scrupulously clean in execution and engaging in temperament. Everything is flexible and nicely to scale. Beautifully judged recording quality too.