Sundqvist Jumppanen Joulain Meta4 - Chamber Music - SUPER-AUDIO CD [Super Audio CD (SACD)]

Berit Johansen Tange - Works for Flute & Piano [COMPACT DISCS] date 11/17/2023

Internationally acclaimed for his music for orchestra (17 symphonies and 31 concertos to date), Kalevi Aho has also composed chamber and solo works. The present disc combines six such pieces, ranging across the composer's career. The earliest work on the disc is the Bach-inspired Sonata for solo violin from 1973, reminding us that during his years at the Sibelius Aacademy (1968 - 71), Aho studied the violin as well as composition. Another early piece, Prelude, Toccata and Postlude, also started out as a solo work - this time for the cello - before developing into a duo. From the other end, chronologically speaking, is the ample Piano Sonata No. 2 from 2016, with a duration of some 25 minutes. This time it is Beethoven who has provided inspiration, and the composer describes the work as 'a commentary on the Hammerklavier Sonata, in which Beethoven's motifs are frequently InchmisquotedInch and developed in a different direction.' The sonata closes the programme but not before giving us an opportunity to hear three further works involving the violin - a second solo piece, In memoriam Pehr Henrik Nordgren, written in memory of Aho's fellow composer and friend, Lamento for two violins and Halla ('frost') for violin and piano. Performing these works are four highly respected Finnish musicians, the violinists (and brothers) Jaakko and Pekka Kuusisto, Samuli Peltonen (cello) and Sonja Fräki, pianist and Aho specialist.

The Berolina Ensemble scored a sensational success with it's discovery of Waldemar von Bausznem's music- and not without reason. Bausznern's music is distinguished by individual wit and instrumented with rich imagination, and what the young Berlin chamber ensemble gets out of the unusual instrumental combinations is an absolutely listening must. Now the Berolinas have unearthed yet another treasure trove a quintet and a trio frame Bausznern's Chamber Songs, which Maria Bengtsson interprets with a fine feel for the traditional French, German, and Italian melodies. Bausznem, who grew up in Transylvania, quite early developed an interest in the folk music of his Hungarian surroundings. He was influenced by the New Germans, educated in the Brahms tradition in Berlin, and went on to develop a most highly individual personal style that is always good for surprises. However, it seems to have been too Inchfar outInch for the conservative Berlin public of his times, whose members evidently were irritated by it's great artistic freedom. All of which makes it all the more enthralling today the works recorded here offer exemplary illustrations of the very different aspects in Bausznern's oeuvre.