Kalevi Aho (b. 1949)
Symphony No. 17 Sinfonisia freskoja (2017)
Jan Lehtola (organ); Laura Hynninen (harp)
Lahti Symphony Orchestra/Erkki Lasonpalo
rec. 2024, Sibelius Hall, Lahti, Finland
BIS BIS-2676 SACD [60]
To my shame, I have not previously encountered the music of Kalevi Aho. However, I have read a lot of admiring comments about his music, including many by various Musicweb colleagues whose judgement I respect. So, when this world premiere recording of his Seventeenth symphony arrived, I felt I should take the opportunity to acquaint myself with his music.
BIS has done a sterling job in recording Aho’s music, including string quartets and a significant number of concertos. They have been particularly loyal to him as a symphonist; I think I’m right in saying that of his previous sixteen symphonies they have issued recordings of almost all of them; so far as I can discover, only two of the composer’s most recent symphonies – the Sixteenth and Eighteenth – have yet to be recorded by them. The Lahti Symphony Orchestra has been closely involved in the recording of his symphonies; they have featured in all of the recordings I’ve located with the exception of the Twelfth and Fourteenth symphonies. In most of the symphonic recordings they were conducted by Osmo Vänskä. Readers who, like me, are late in coming to recordings of Aho’s music will find a perceptive and thorough survey by Dan Morgan of many of the earlier orchestral recordings here.
The Seventeenth symphony is, the composer says, his most extensive work to date for orchestra. Not only is it substantial in scale – of which more in a moment – but also in terms of the forces required. I’ve not been able to discover the exact scoring but a session photo in the documentation shows a very large orchestra, including a formidable percussion battery. Aho tells us that he has included parts for two woodwind instruments developed in the 21st century. One is a lupaphone, which is a variant of the heckelphone but capable of playing a third lower. The other is a contraforte, which he describes as “an acoustically enhanced contrabassoon”. In fact, the parts for these two instruments can be played respectively on a heckelphone and a contrabassoon and that’s what happened on this recording. The other element of scoring which should be mentioned is the organ part. Though the instrument doesn’t have an independent part and almost always functions as part of the overall orchestral texture, its involvement is significant, not least in thunderously reinforcing many of the work’s huge climaxes. BIS rightly credit the organist and also the harpist. I mean absolutely no disrespect to Laura Hynninen but I should say that the harp part does not seem to be as important as that for the organ; it’s in the central movement where the harp has some prominence.
Aho has constructed his symphony in three movements: two very substantial outer movements, which are mostly in slow or moderate tempi, frame a shorter central scherzo. This structure bears some comparison with the Fourth symphony of Shostakovich. Intriguingly, the composer tells us in the booklet that the first movement is “like a symphony within a symphony”. He adds that he designed it in such a way that it can be played as a standalone symphonic poem and that the other two movements also can be performed independently. When listening to the work I have only done so as one continuous work but I can see some quite strong arguments for playing the movements independently.
The first movement is entitled ‘Syvyydestӓ’ (From the Deep); here, it plays for 23:04. In accordance with the title, the movement opens slowly with the sepulchral sound of the contrabassoon. Gradually, the music opens up with the addition of more instruments. Throughout the movement, the prevailing tone is one of deep seriousness. Much of the music is slow-paced but at around 12:00 the speed begins to increase and at 12:50 everything becomes fast and furious; hereabouts, much use is made of incisive, driving percussion, whirling woodwind and potent brass. This section ends in an abrupt cut-off (17:09) after which the heckelphone (I think) plays a long, lightly-accompanied threnody; this compositional tactic put me in mind of Shostakovich, who, in several of his symphonies, writes an extended threnody for a solo instrument, often a bassoon, after an intense climax. After the threnody, Aho returns us to the sepulchral depths in which the movement began (from 18:25). The tension increases in the orchestra until the music arrives at another massive, percussion-driven climax. Again, this is abruptly cut off; then, brief, innocuous woodwind fragments precede a final defiant slam.
The second movement, ‘Scherzo macabre’, is significantly shorter than its predecessor – a ‘mere’ 13:17. The opening features angular writing, sparingly scored; the music is light but definitely macabre and shadowy. There follows an extended passage which sounds to be in a slower tempo (but may just have longer note values) in which a horn, doubled by upper strings, plays an extended melody before the spiky music returns, but this time much more fully scored. Eventually, Aho produces another huge, organ-supported climax. The very end of the movement is the most lightly scored music in the entire symphony; it’s here that deft writing for the harp is much in evidence.
The final movement is ‘Kaukaisia lauluja’ (Distant songs). The dimensions are almost exactly identical with the first movement; this time the duration is 23:11 The composer writes that the movement includes “three shifts to a far-away time, to distant dances or songs’. I think I’ve identified these passages, during which the music has something of a medieval atmosphere to it. The opening is slow and subdued but before long the organ leads the way to an episode in which shrieking woodwind and glittering percussion are to the fore. For most of the symphony the organ has been at most primus inter pares but a few minutes into this movement there’s an imposing, dissonant solo for the instrument, followed by the first of the ‘time shift’ passages, which is a perky dance for the woodwind (at 5:23). The second ‘time shift’, again featuring innocent-sounding woodwind, comes at 10:21; you may not be surprised to learn that this follows another enormous climax. The movement’s final climax is, arguably, the most extended and shattering in the whole symphony. After that, at 19:09 the harp softly leads the way into an extended passage of slowly-paced music; here’s where I think the final ‘time shift’ section occurs, when we hear a slow dance played by the woodwind with a tabor-like accompaniment. After all the many tumultuous sections, the hushed slow ending seems logical; the last sounds we hear are those of shimmering percussion as the work dies away a niente.
Kalevi Aho’s Seventeenth symphony is a deeply serious utterance. I’m still not quite sure I know what to make of it. One regret I have is that the composer’s booklet notes are pretty succinct, which is rather in contrast to the musical expression in the symphony. The notes include just one short paragraph in which he discusses the three movements. Of course, this may be deliberate on his part; he may intend the listener to make his or her own way into the music but, for myself, I should have welcomed a bit more in the way of signposts. I mentioned earlier that I could see arguments for performing the three movements as separate entities. One argument, I think, is that the symphony, for all its qualities, is somewhat unremitting in its seriousness; I hear little by way of light relief. The other is that the climaxes in the outer movements are so extended and massive that, when heard over the span of an hour, they almost become self-defeating. At times I had the impression of the aural equivalent of piling Pellion upon Ossa. That said, Aho is highly effective in the way that he deploys his vast instrumental forces; much of the scoring is highly imaginative.
The performance by Erkki Lasonpalo and the Lahti Symphony Orchestra is magnificent. The recording is a mixture of studio and live: a note in the booklet states that the sessions took place between 12 and 15 March 2024, including a public concert on 14 March. Lasonpalo and the musicians maintain the tension in Aho’s writing and seem to be on top of the composer’s significant demands. The recording was made by a team from Arcantus Musikproduktion. They’ve done an amazing job. The colossal climaxes are done full justice but so too are the contrasting soft passages. Despite the often-dense orchestral textures there’s a great deal of clarity. The organ is recorded thrillingly but, I’m sure in accordance with Aho’s intentions, is never allowed to dominate the proceedings. Overall, to say that the recorded sound has impact would be to risk understatement.
This is clearly an important work by an important composer. Admirers of Kalevi Aho’s music should lose no time in hearing it.
John Quinn
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