SKU: FG.55011-320-6

ISBN 9790550113206.

Guitar sonata A Walk to the Mysterious Woods (2012-13) is so far the most extensive of the works Kai Nieminen has written for his own instrument, the guitar. The sonata features virtuosic and delicate timbre which is typical of Nieminen's musical idiom and which requires both technical and poetic skill of the performer. The music invokes a fairytale-like scene of nature with its references to Finnish mythology.

Kai Nieminen's guitar sonata is in four movements which follow each other attacca. The form of the work resembles the traditional sonata form: exposition (A Walk with Birdsong) - development (Along the Brook and Song(s) from the Arctic) - recapitulation (Return). The dark chords of the beginning, the pressing silence and the icy-sounding harmony created by the E flat bass line evoke an image of a winter forest. As if following birdsong, the music carries the listener through various landscapes and moods. Birdsong takes the listener to a brook, which then carries the traveller to the ancient Sami joik, a traditional form of chant, and allows him or her to bask in the serenity of natural beauty in a moment where the past and present meet.