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A Conversation with Kalevi Aho

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 April 2015

Martin Anderson
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Extract

At the relatively young age of 43 (which his schoolboyish looks nonetheless belie), Kalevi Aho is one of the best-known of Finnish composers, with a substantial corpus of music to his credit – seven symphonies and other orchestral pieces, two operas and several smaller vocal works, three concertos (for violin, cello and for piano), and a healthy amount of chamber and instrumental music. I visited him in Helsinki last summer, in the offices of the Helsinki Festival, where he has a hand in the planning of the programmes, and remarked first on the richness and sheer vigour of Finnish musical life; anyone visiting Finland will be struck by the fact that it seems to have an awful lot of composers.

Type
Research Article
Information
Tempo , Issue 181 , June 1992 , pp. 16 - 18
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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References

1 Including the Lahti Symphony Orchestra, whose recording, conducted by Osmo Vänskä, can be found on BIS-CD-396; the other works on this CD are Aho's orchestral Hiljaisus (Silence) of 1982 and the Violin Concerto (1981–82), in which the soloist is Manfred Gräsbeck.

2 The Fifth and Seventh Symphonies are recorded on Ondine ODE-765–2; Max Pommer conducts the Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra.

3 A broadcast of the Finnlevy LP recording of the work (SFX 44), with the Tampere City Orchestra conducted by Paavo Rautio; one hopes it is under consideration for re-issue.

4 The Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra, founded in 1972 by juha Kangas, who is still its chief conductor. Among other Finnish composers who have written for the Orchestra are Pehr Henrik Nordgren, Erik Bergman, Paavo Heininen and Jouni Kaipainen; others include Osvaldes Balakauskas (Lithuania), Anders Eliasson (Sweden), Atli Heimir Sveinsson (Iceland), Erkki-Sven Tüür (Estonia) and Peters Vasks (Latvia). Cf. Helisto, Paavo, ‘Music in Kokkola’, Finnish Music Quarterly, 2/1991 Google Scholar.

5 Available (coupled with Leo Funtek's idiomatic orchestration of Pictures at an Exhibition) on BIS-CD-325; Neeme Järvi accompanies Martti Talvela with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Aho writes about his approach to this task in ‘Modest Mussorgsky under the Orchestrator's Knife’, Finnish Music Quarterly, 1/1987 Google Scholar.

6 Rautavaara's Symphonies Nos. 1–3 are on Ondine ODE 740–2; Symphonies Nos. 4 and 5, with the Cantus Arcticus, are on Ondine ODE 747–2.

7 Suomalainen musiikki ja Kalevala (Finnish Music and the Kalevala), The Finnish Literature Society, Mäntää, 1985.