Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra

“The Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra is a splendid body indeed: scrupulous in ensemble, refined in tone, almost aristocratic.”
The Times

The Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra (FRSO) is the orchestra of the Finnish Broadcasting Company (Yle). Its mission is to produce and promote Finnish musical culture and its Chief Conductor as of autumn 2021 is Nicholas Collon.

The Radio Orchestra of ten players founded in 1927 grew to symphony orchestra proportions in the 1960s. Its Chief Conductors have been Toivo Haapanen, Nils-Eric Fougstedt, Paavo Berglund, Okko Kamu, Leif Segerstam, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Sakari Oramo and Hannu Lintu.

In addition to the great Classical-Romantic masterpieces, the latest contemporary music is a major item in the repertoire of the FRSO, which each year premieres a number of Yle commissions. Another of the orchestra’s tasks is to record all Finnish orchestral music for the Yle archive.

The FRSO has recorded works by Mahler, Bartók, Sibelius, Hakola, Lindberg, Saariaho, Sallinen, Kaipainen, Kokkonen and others. It has twice won a Gramophone Award: for its disc of Lindberg’s Clarinet Concerto in 2006 and of Bartók Violin Concertos in 2018. Other distinctions have included BBC Music Magazine, Académie Charles Cros and MIDEM Classical awards. Its disc of tone poems and songs by Sibelius won an International Classical Music Award (ICMA) in 2018, and it has been the recipient of a Finnish EMMA award in 2016 and 2019.

The FRSO concerts are broadcast live on the Yle Areena and Radio 1 channels and are recorded and shown later on Yle Teema and TV 1.

Finnish RSO — Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra © Paul Boström

“When the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra is coming on stage, one first realises how young many of the musicians are – and how many women there are, right down to the brass section. The sound, which chief conductor Hannu Lintu established during his five years tenure, is youthful and fresh: the strings are vibrating sparingly even playing romantic music, developing a powerful and substantial performance, the woodwind is delivering imaginative soli, the brass is setting sharp accents. […] The Finns know the music of their compatriot Jean Sibelius very well. But it’s still amazing, how organically the 50-year old Lintu creates the Symphony 7 in C‑major.”

(Munchenmusik Abendzeitung, April 2018)

“With this recording Hannu Lintu signs truly great performances, deeply inspired, highly colourful and evocative. In the songs orchestrated by Aulis Sallinen Anne-Sofie von Otter’s singing is very atmospheric and the orchestra becomes a new narrative function. Outstanding!”

Pizzicato, October 2017

“Ending with the “grande joie” of the finale, this is a performance of distinctive, evocative character, full of pertinent, dramatic incident and structured with confidence and vigour.”

The Telegraph, July 2014

“As this wonderful movement unfolds, there’s also a tendency to give accents and phrase-openings more emphasis than the score implies – fortunately not enough to disfigure Lintu’s sweeping and tightly focused command of one surging paragraph after another.”

classical-music.com, July 2015

“The Finnish orchestra is an impressive instrument: it has a range of sound that in the fortes can reach fever pitch, and further to an extraordinary quality of playing, they offer their own sound – something that is highly sought-after today in an orchestra.”

Diario de Noticias, May 2013