joy & asymmetry is a new recording from the Helsink Chamber Choir and their conductor Nils Schweckendiek.  It consista of music by Finnish composers Kalevi Aho and Einojuhani Rautavaara, although by no means all the texts are in Finnish.

There’s some interesting music on the recording but a lot of it is relatively stately, layered, polyphony.  That’s not exactly unusual for contemporary choral music and if it’s your thing there’s a lot to like her.  I’ll admit though to finding much of it quite soporific.

For me, one of the most interesting pieces on the disk is Aho’s Kiolme lualua Mawlana Rumin runoikin which sets three ghazals by Rumi translated into Finnish.  In particular the third one “Kuolkaa!” (Die!) has some interestingly dense polyphony.  I also liked his Ilo ja epäsymmetria; which gives the album it’s title.  It’s a seven movement work with some lively pieces and, again, really dense layering.  The most interesting Rautavaara piece is Elämän kirja (A Book of Life).  This sets texts on various life stages in English, French and German,  It’s somewhat varied in mood with some interesting vocal effects but is still overwhelmingly stately, layered polyphony.  All in all there’s some 68 minutes of music on the disk.

The various tracks were recorded between 2019 and 2022 at various churches in Finland.  It’s very well engineered with a good sense of space.  It’s released as a hybrid SACD and in various digital stereo formats up to 96kHz/24bit resolution which I listened to.  I would have been interested to hear what the SACD surround mix sounded like.  I think it could be very effective for this kind of music.  There’s an informative booklet with texts and English translations.

Catalogue information: BIS 2692