4 concertos premiered in a month – a world record for a composer?
NewsFrom the forthcoming schedule of Finnish composer Kalevi Aho:
24/2/2022: Concerto for Piccolo Clarinet and Orchestra “Simplicius Simplicissimus”
11/3/2022: Double Concerto for Flute, Harp and Orchestra (Osmo Vänskä conducts; Emmanuel Ceysson on the harp; Niamh McKenna on the flute)
17/3/2022: Concerto for Alto Flute and Strings (Gabriel Bebeselea conducts)
31/3/2022: Double Concerto for Viola, Percussion and Strings
Aho is thought to have composed 37 concertos to date.
The winters are long in Finland.
The World Record is 29 in a month. That was during a leap year, of course.
Yes, that’s about it, and we have recorded and released 24 of them, if I calculate correctly – it is very difficult to keep up with his speed, but we have several in planning. The amazing thing, though, is the quality – every single work of his is a pearl in itself, and most concertos are around the half-hour mark – no trifles here. A composer like that is totally unique – also the fact that he can play almost all of the instruments himself – he really knows what he is doing, when writing for an instrument!
Robert von Bahr, BIS Records, Sweden
And a most kind and generous man to boot. (With a really dry sense of humour.)
Aho is a worthy successor to such fertile composers as Saint-Saens, Milhaud and Martinu.
I’ve bought most of the Aho concertos that BIS has released, and there isn’t a single one I regret getting. Aho doesn’t seem to have a generic ‘house style’. As one would expect, some of the concertos are more challenging and rebarbative than others. On the other hand, I underestimated the tympani concerto. On the hi-fi, it sounded one of the least interesting, and rambling. However, when my local Auckland Philharmonia programmed it a couple of years ago, it was extremely well received for a contemporary work. Exciting and unpredictable in the concert hall, it’s a minor mystery why it sounded rather underwhelming without a live concert’s visual stimuli and immersive acoustic.
Here is his impressive 16th (!) symphony:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmwbH5j1NT0
A fascinating landscape painting in tones. It sounds very, very Skandinavian…. a very imaginative composer.
I doubt it. Reason: Vivaldi.
How many of these premiers were delayed by covid?
Indeed, this is the natural explanation.
Certainly Finland’s senior composer. An amazing œuvre!
There is much better than Kalevi Aho.
Paavo Heininen !
There is plenty of records for Aho
And hardly nothing for Heininen.
What a big disgrace !
Heininen is much less accessible: music like Alban Berg’s, early Viennese expressionism, full of pain and alienation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7PEw5oCW8Y
Heininen is ‘about’ man, Aho ‘about’ Nature.
Heininen writes fantastically for the orchestra, however.
Heck, and the guy even has a fell walk named after him in a gorgeous area of Finland! I was introduced to Aho’s music via Christian Lindberg (Aho’s 9th Symphony is, actually, a trombone concerto) and have since enjoyed numerous other works of his. Really wonderful to have a modern composer with a wide, varied, and approachable oeuvre.
The reason why Aho is ‘approachable’, is that under the surface the dynamics of his music are traditional and tonal. He just uses them in a personal way – with freedom, and taste.