Customer Reviews

Aho: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 7

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This is a very rewarding disc of some very interesting music. Kalevi Aho is not exactly a revolutionary, but a very skilled and resourceful - and not the least very often genuinely inspired - composer. The second symphony was a student work written in 1970 but revised in 1995 and is far more accomplished than the first impression might make it appear - indeed, this is a work that really grows on the listener. It is a one-movemented, heavily contrapuntal triple fugue gradually building in tension and energy, and drawing at least some inspiration from Bartok and Shostakovich to eminently satisfying effect.

The programmatic seventh symphony, drawn from the material from a never-realized opera "Insect Life" is something of a curious work, but no less satisfying for that. Structurally, it might seem more like a highly imaginative symphonic suite than a genuine symphony, where the various movements depict butterflies, grasshoppers, soldier ants, dung beetles and dayflies. Contrary to what the title might suggest, however, this is not primarily a "fun" work, but a bleak, starkly satirical apocalyptic vision of a world where the insects have taken over after the demise of humankind.

The playing of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra under Osmo Vänskä is very good and the sound quality more than acceptable, if a little artificial. All in all, this disc can be confidently recommended.

And I thought the only things Finland had to offer the world were Sibelius and the Lahti Symphony. Aho may very well be the greatest living composer. His music bears the atonal stamp of modernity, but unlike Dutilleux's focus on stylistic flourish or Pärt's emphasis on monastic self-denial, Aho appears to take music a step further from Szymanowski, Shostakovich, and to a greater degree, Britten.

The Seventh is what makes me think of Britten the most, as Aho employs reference to other, earlier musical styles, then jabs at them from unexpected angles to twist everything into new meanings. Shostakovich, on the other hand, can be more readily heard in the stark and tremulous passages of the Second.

The Lahti Symphony, who are already aces at Sibelius, display their abilities to play music just as subtle but far less tonally centered with Aho. The audio on this disc, like so many from BIS, does not disappoint, and surely does justice to this marvelous, mysterious work. Aho, Vänskä and Lahti are a fantastic combination.