Hiyoli Togawa SONGS OF SOLITUDE

 

SONGS OF SOLITUDE

 

Brandon Patrick George FLUTE SONATAS & SOLO WORKS

FLUTE SONATAS & SOLO WORKS

 

Colin Currie / Lahti Symphony Orchestra / Dima Slobodeniouk KALEVI AHO Sieidi - Symphony No. 5

SIEIDI - SYMPHONY No. 5

Samuli Peltonen / Sonja Fräki / Jaakko Kuusisto / Pekka Kuusisto KALEVI AHO Chamber Music

                                                              CHAMBER MUSIC

Antwerp Symphony Orchestra / Martyn Brabbins KALEVI AHO Trombone Concerto - Trumpet Concerto

Hugely prolific as well as widely acclaimed, Kalevi Aho has composed 30 concertos to date. Many of them are available in recordings from BIS, and the present release features two works from the past decade. The Concerto for Trombone and Orchestra was commissioned for Jörgen van Rijen, who also performs it here. The concerto is actually Aho’s second concertante piece for the trombone – his Symphony No. 9 (1994) included a substantial and very virtuosic solo part for the instrument. In that work, and even more so in the concerto, the composer’s aim has been to extend the expressive and virtuosic possibilities of the trombone. Composed around the same time, the Trumpet Concerto is scored for the wind section of a medium-sized symphony orchestra, plus two saxophones, baritone horn and percussion. It was given its premiere by the same musicians that perform it here, the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra under Martyn Brabbins supporting its principal trumpet Alain De Rudder in what is often a surprisingly jazzy work.

Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet KALEVI AHO Wind Quintets 1 & 2

With 17 symphonies in his list of works, not to mention operas and concertos, it is easy to forget that Kalevi Aho also composes chamber music. He has in fact written some ten quintets alone, for various combinations of instrument. Two are ‘normal’ wind quintets and it is these that the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet (BPWQ) perform on the present disc. The ensemble came into contact with the Finnish composer’s Wind Quintet No. 1 in 2010, and was immediately struck by the qualities and challenges of the score. The composer himself has described the difficulties in writing for wind quintet, in terms of achieving a balanced and homogeneous sound and soft dynamics. In his first quintet he therefore included unison passages and sometimes even reduced the music to one or two parts. In the fourth movement he also added a spatial dimension by having all of the players perform from offstage at some point. Having played the work a number of times on their many tours, the BPWQ decided to commission their own quintet, and in 2015 they gave the first performance of Wind Quintet No. 2. This time, Aho found another solution to the inherent difficulties – by making the flutist and oboist change instruments to piccolo or alto flute and cor anglais at various points, the piece achieves an even wider spectrum of unusual and innovative tone colours and moods.

Martin Fröst / Lahti Symphony Orchestra / Osmo Vänskä NIELSEN & AHO Clarinet Concertos

Fearsomely talented Swedish clarinetist Martin Fröst continues his conquest of the major concerto repertoire for his instrument with this recording of Carl Nielsen's 1928 Clarinet Concerto, paired with a new concerto by Finland's Kalevi Aho. The Nielsen concerto is a dense work in which the clarinet and the orchestra spend a lot of time going their separate ways, with the path of the clarinet being very twisted indeed. Difficult arabesques on the clarinet are interrupted without warning by heraldic blasts from the orchestral horns. The concerto was greeted by early reviewers as a radical modern work, and an instrumentalist wanting to push the clarinet into uncomfortable territory can still make it sound that way. Fröst, however, places the concerto into a sphere that includes many of Nielsen's other well-known works: for him it is not so much a radical work as one that has the characteristic Nielsen combination of being both a bit conservative and quite intellectually challenging. As the clarinet seems to fall into disputes with individual members of the orchestra, Fröst is implacable rather than furious, and he has the technical chops to make this approach work. The Aho concerto is a lyrical piece that makes a good companion for the thornier Nielsen. It offers plenty of chances for cantabile display, not only on the part of Fröst but also for Finland's Lahti Symphony Orchestra under Osmo Vänskä, whose high string tones have an impressive precision and smoothness. The Super Audio sound from Sweden's BIS label is well-nigh flawless, and this is an original and immensely satisfying recording that both asserts the continuing relevance of classic repertoire and adds vital new music to the literature. (James Manheim)

Bram van Sambeek / Lahti Symphony Orchestra AHO & FAGERLUND Bassoon Concertos

The Finnish composer Kalevi Aho (b. 1949) and his younger colleague and compatriot Sebastian Fagerlund (b. 1972) have both received international recognition for their masterful treatment of large orchestral forces. This they have demonstrated in purely orchestral as well as in concertante works – Aho has written 26 concertos to date (most of them in his monumental project to compose a concerto for each of the main orchestral instruments), and Fagerlund’s concertos for clarinet and for violin have been released by BIS to critical acclaim. On this disc the two composers appear side by side with their respective concertos for bassoon and orchestra, works that to a certain extent illustrate different approaches to the concerto genre. If the Romantic concept of the concerto was that of a struggle between the soloist and orchestra, Fagerlund in his Mana (2014) instead gives the bassoon the role of a spiritual leader, conjuring up new sound worlds from the orchestra. (In Swedish – Fagerlund’s mother tongue – ‘mana’ is a verb that suggests invocation; in Finnish the word alludes to exorcism). Kalevi Aho, on the other hand, has endeavoured to enrich and expand the solo instrument’s sonic and expressive possibilities through his use of orchestration and describes his concerto as ‘quite symphonic in character’. In both works Lahti Symphony Orchestra supports the soloist Bram van Sambeek, the first bassoonist ever to receive the prestigious Dutch Music Prize and the musician for whom Fagerlund composed Mana. In preparation for the concerto Fagerlund also wrote the solo piece Woodlands, which van Sambeek includes here together with Aho’s dramatic Solo V. (BIS Records)

John-Edward Kelly / Tapiola Sinfonietta KALEVI AHO Chamber Symphonies Nos. 1 - 3

The focus of Kalevi Aho’s output lies on large-scale orchestral works, and his work-list includes fifteen symphonies to date, composed between 1969 and 2010. Although the Finnish composer is famously lavish as an orchestrator, and often invites rare guests such as the heckelphone into his orchestra, the scores of Aho’s three chamber symphonies are much more economic in scale. But although composed for some twenty strings in all, and of more modest durations than for instance the 50-minute Eighth Symphony for organ and orchestra, they bear eloquent proof of the composer’s aim of exploiting to the full the expressive capabilities of a string orchestra. Consequently these works are highly demanding for the players; not because virtuosity has been an end in itself, but for reasons of maximum expressivity. For Chamber Symphony No.3, the composer decided to include a solo part for alto saxophone, written for John-Edward Kelly who also performs it here. In his liner notes, Aho describes the piece as ‘a hybrid of chamber symphony and saxophone concerto’ and relates how he was inspired by Arabic music, and more particularly by a certain ‘unique melodic heterophony’ resulting from different musicians playing the same melodic pattern, but each of them with slight differences. Performing these scores are the eminent strings of the Tapiola Sinfonietta, an ensemble which has earned high praise from reviewers around the world for its recordings, ranging from Arvo Pärt to Saint-Saëns and C.M. von Weber. The conductors Jean-Jacques Kantorow and Stefan Asbury are both close collaborators of the orchestra, and the presence of the composer during the recordings vouches for the authenticity of these performances. (BIS Records)

Jan Lehtola KALEVI AHO Ludus Solemnis

Aho’s writing for organ certainly betrays the same ear for instrumental colour as his orchestral works, and it is refreshing to hear what one might call a ‘non-French’ approach to the instrument. The writing is springy, the melodic lines clear and athletic, textures uncluttered; the lineage is certainly northern European, and Bach in particular is paid homage to in Aho’s remarkable completion of the Contrapunctus XIV from The Art of Fugue.

The longest piece here is the austere Quasi una fantasia for horn and organ but for me the most impressive works are Ludus solemnis, whose opening suggests a majestic chorale prelude and then splinters into a sequence of precisely coloured landscapes, exploiting to the full the magnificent Åkerman & Lund organ in St John’s church in Malmö, and the elegiac Laulu maasta (‘Song of the Earth’) for violin, oboe and organ. This latter is just under five minutes in length but one feels that it could be expanded into a much longer piece, so engaging is the material and so fascinating the colours produced by this unlikely trio of instruments. There are also simpler, practical pieces here – three wedding marches written at different times, an Epilogue for trombone and organ, and a lovely In memoriam. There is clearly more for Aho to say in this field and Lehtola is the man to transmit the message. (Ivan Moody / Gramophone)

Piet van Bockstal / Lahti Symphony Orchestra / Martyn Brabbins KALEVI AHO Oboe Concerto - Solo IX - Oboe Sonata

All three of these works rely on extended oboe techniques—but each does so in a different way. In the Sonata (1984-5, by far the Solo IX (2010), traces of the normal/extended conflict remain in the form of sometimes bitter conversation (even confrontation) among differing “sound worlds,” but without the morally loaded overlay (pure/impure) that we find in the sonata. In the Concerto (2007)—which borrows liberally from Arabic music in its scales, rhythms, and instrumentation—the extended techniques have been integrated into the soloist’s voice. No longer reflecting a musical “other,” they are treasured for their expressive potential.  

Aho is one of the most distinguished of our living composers; and, on the basis of what I’ve heard (his output is enormous), one of the most consistent: He’s stylistically wide-ranging, but his concentration is unfailing. It’s perhaps no surprise, then, that all three of these imaginative works hold your attention from first note to last. Or, more accurately, these works reward your attention from first note to last. They’re not easy listening—they won’t carry you along without effort on your part. The sonata, which makes some apparent allusions to the Shostakovich 10th, is especially challenging, as both the emotional content of the music and the relation of the two performers are apt to shift unexpectedly and sometimes violently, leaving you in a state of anxious vulnerability. There’s a bit less whiplash in the 10-minute solo work, but this, too, is both vehement and changeable in a way that keeps you on your guard.  

That said, it’s the concerto to which I find myself returning most often, perhaps because it makes the most of Aho’s exceptional timbral imagination. Gavin Dixon recently referred to the “Nordic chill” of Aho’s Clarinet Quintet ( Fanfare 36:3), but there’s no chill in this Middle-Eastern inflected music. There’s no musical tourism, either—no attempt at tickling us with exoticism of the sort we hear in Ibert’s Escales , the Corigliano Oboe Concerto, or the “Arab Village” from Schuller’s Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee . In part, that’s because the Arabic elements are fundamental to his expressive palette, rather than a superficial add-on. Even more, though, it’s because the intensity of the music—dedicated to the memory of Aho’s mother, who died just as he was finishing it—is so far from the postcard aesthetic. The work begins with a 10-minute lament. That’s followed by four more movements, played without pause. They range wildly in character, yet the sense that the soloist is railing against the pain of the world remains. The struggle is sometimes beneath the surface of the music, but it’s never far away, and it erupts with particular violence at the end of the fifth movement. In the end, the concerto leaves you drained—and I wish that BIS had placed it at the end of the disc rather than at the beginning.  

Piet Van Bockstal plays with staggering virtuosity and an almost terrifying conviction; he gets excellent support from Brabbins and the Lahti Symphony and from pianist Yutaka Oya. BIS’s engineers capture it all with their usual skill (on the 5.0 tracks, the sound is nearly palpable), and the notes, mainly by Aho himself, give just the information you need. In sum, strongly recommended. (FANFARE / Peter J. Rabinowitz)

Anders Paulsson / Lapland Chamber Orchestra / John Storgårds KALEVI AHO Concerto for Soprano Saxophone - Quintet for Winds and Piano

BIS’s long-term commitment to the music of Kalevi Aho (impressive even by the standards of this label) continues with a disc that focuses on recent concertante and chamber works. The Concerto for soprano saxophone (2015) is among the most recent of Aho’s substantial contribution to this genre, taken to a new level of refinement. Its three movements suggest a Classical format, though the first accelerates from an atmospheric ‘Invocatio’ into a Presto whose propulsion carries over into an intricate Cadenza; after which the central Misterioso unfolds an elegant melodic line over pensive harmonies, while the finale regains something of the earlier rhythmic energy on its way to a ‘Quasi epilogo’ that brings the work understatedly full-circle.

The Quintet for piano and wind instruments (2013) is formally a more orthodox conception, though not without elements of surprise or suspense. Here, the discursiveness of its opening movement is countered by an impetuous ‘Toccata’, then a sombrely expressive ‘Nocturno’ provides respite before the final ‘Burlesco’ accelerates to its exhilarating close.

Both Anders Paulsson and Väinö Jalkanen evince admirable musicianship, as does Jaakko Kuusisto in Solo I (1975), the first in what has become a sequence of 12 (to date) pieces which provide a latter-day counterpart to Berio’s Sequenza series. The cadenza of Shostakovich’s First Violin Concerto seems the likely precedent in its pursual of a trajectory from relative stasis to outright dynamism, though with audible modal inflections along with that pivoting between tradition and innovation which has informed Aho’s music throughout his maturity. (Richard Whitehouse / Gramophone)

Sharon Bezaly WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART Complete Works for Flute & Orchestra

When the greater part of the programme on this disc was released as the BIS 2005 Catalogue Disc, the response was electrifying. Sharon Bezaly was described as ‘God’s gift to the flute’ in The Times (UK), and a quote from the review in BBC Music Magazine is representative: ‘Bezaly's exquisite, technically immaculate, compelling playing sets new standards in this repertoire, as do Kalevi Aho's stunning cadenzas, composed especially for this recording.’ Other reviewers agreed, and the disc received top marks in Le Monde de la Musique, Crescendo, Musica and other magazines as well as on radio stations and web sites such as Classics Today. This staggeringly successful title – 145 000 copies sold worldwide! – is now made available again with the important inclusion of a newly made recording of the Concerto for Flute and Harp. At a session in October 2007, we reunited the performers and recording crew of the 2005 disc in the original venue, with the addition of the eminent harpist Julie Palloc as co-soloist. Furthermore, Finnish composer Kalevi Aho again provided the cadenzas for the work, as he had for the other concertos on the disc. The result is not to be missed – a 24 carat, complete collection of all Mozart’s works for flute and orchestra, on a hybrid SACD with the extremely generous playing time of 81 minutes and 52 seconds! (BIS Records)