Kalevi Aho

[David Ayers]

I have never heard anything by Aho in concert, and had therefore never investigated. The local Blackwells had ten copies of the BIS SACD of his Ludus Solemnis; Works by or with Organ, as well as one or two other titles. Ten copies, so either they accidentally over-ordered or for some reason were promoting that disc heavily. Ten copies, so ten ordered and none sold. Anyway, I wondered if there were some reason for promoting Aho, a local following or something, or whether he is a cult figure and I don't know it. Rather than impulse purchase, I went over to Spotify and checked his Luosto Symphony and Contrabassoon Concerto. Nether work made much impact, though it wasn't the most concentrated listen. But I'd hate to miss out on a cult, so I am wondering if anyone has any knowledge of Aho they would like to share. An academic composer strongly promoted by a local orchestra and an effective conductor, with the help of a label fond of and looking for projects - or something more?

Edited November 9, 2014 by David Ayers

[MomsMobley]

VASTLY more than a cult, for those with an interest he's among handful of greatest living composers of symphonies, concertos +++, brilliant inheritor of all worthy 20th streams, his assimilation of which can irritate cornball neo-tonalists & academic ersatz modernist both but like any artist of great merit, he does what he likes. in profligacy, invention one might compare him to Villa-Lobos, with dashses of Buxtehude, Telemann, Ravel & a far more colorful Hindemith; Messiaen in the sauna with Sibelius; Schoenberg playing ping pong with George Gershwin; Shostakovich before Zdanov etc.

Recent, awesome, with the possibility of thrilling lots of people who likely don't know it exists

http://yle.fi/radio/yleradio1/ohjelmat/uudetlevyt/theremin_haastaa_konserttomestari_ahon/7434157

[Larry Kart]

I bought this one a while back:

http://www.amazon.com/Sym-2-7-K-Aho/dp/B00000G5QD/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1415592654&sr=1-1&keywords=aho+insect

thought it was drivel and sold it.

[JSngry]

Finnish, eh? Most of the post WWII-born composers I've been discovering and enjoying to any relevant degree have been either Finnish, Estonian, and/or female. Perhaps not really, but that's the impression I have, brought about by those YouTube clips.

For whatever reason, a lot of this stuff has moments or more where it sounds to me like one big elongated orchestrated Wayne Shorter performance.

Remaining credibility finally destroyed once and for all, but that's a fun way to hear it, especially if you can't help it. Larry hears drivel, I hear Wayne. Sometimes...enough to make it relevant and/or interesting to the moment at hand.

Perhaps it's finally time to consider medication..I have insurance.

[Larry Kart]

If you're talking about the semi-recent Shorter quartet in concert CD (or maybe I mean or also mean a video of that group in concert) thought that was pretty close to drivel, too. Some of most annoyingly aimless stuff I've ever heard from a once major musician.

[JSngry]

Actually, I'm really going back to the Plugged Nickel solos onward, but I know we view Wayne's subsequent path(s) in pretty much diametrically opposed viewpoints, so a divergence of opinion is no big deal, should be expected. No biggie, afaic. But I do hear a lot of Wayne-ish-ness in the contours of the lines and the dramatic schematics of a lot of this music, drivel or not.

Again, I have no idea what I'm talking about other than it's what I'm hearing at this time. Ignorance = bliss, perhaps. I'll figure it out when/as necessary.

[Larry Kart]

Actually, I'm really going back to the Plugged Nickel solos onward, but I know we view Wayne's subsequent path(s) in pretty much diametrically opposed viewpoints, so a divergence of opinion is no big deal, should be expected. No biggie, afaic. But I do hear a lot of Wayne-ish-ness in the contours of the lines and the dramatic schematics of a lot of this music, drivel or not.

Again, I have no idea what I'm talking about other than it's what I'm hearing at this time. Ignorance = bliss, perhaps. I'll figure it out when/as necessary.

No, I like (or still find interesting) a lot of recent latter-day Wayne, but that quartet in concert stuff struck me as a whole other thing, almost, a la the pirate in the joke, left me saying "It's driving me nuts."

[JSngry]

Understood. Point was just that I hear Wayne as a point-of-reference/listening/familiarity/whatever for a lot of this music. Whether that's "correct" in any way outside of my own mind...probably/definitely not? But it's working for me.

[David Ayers]

Well, mom's the word on this one. I am auditing the 'Insect' symphony.

I have now been twice through Luosto, which I started with first as I thought the project of writing 'outdoor music' (as in Music for the Royal Fireworks) was an interesting starting point. I don't love the wordless vocals though was otherwise more drawn on the second and more attentive listen.

That said, I am not sure whether the freedom to 'do what one likes' - the merciless freedom of all capable contemporary composers - risks also in translating into 'now this happens' 'now this happens' - which I hear often in contemporary music. That can be though because the works are complicated and you don't always get the logic and feel, either in yourself or indeed in the performance. I shall press on.

Re. Nordic composers, I have enjoyed investigating quite a few, but don't feel sure that some of these figures are not over-promoted by their national arts mechanisms. Among this 'Nordic' group I find Magnus Lindberg very compelling and very much to my liking. So far he's the only one I have really taken to...

[JSngry]

That said, I am not sure whether the freedom to 'do what one likes' - the merciless freedom of all capable contemporary composers - risks also in translating into 'now this happens' 'now this happens' - which I hear often in contemporary music. That can be though because the works are complicated and you don't always get the logic and feel, either in yourself or indeed in the performance. I shall press on.

That's a recurring line I've heard applied to a lot of different musics over the years, that it's just a series of events...and it's a complaint that in principle I do not understand, as that's true of uninspired music of pretty much any ilk.

Having said that, the instances that in my experience would lead me to voice somewhat the same dislike would be if the events themselves are sort of "exercises", that is, working with devices that are not presented with anything to further them past being just that, basic delineations of standard formulae/math/orchestration/whatever. But that's a matter of content, not of architecture.

I find that if these perceived individual "events" have enough substance within themselves, the macro-logic will eventually reveal itself, perhaps in a more "subjective" manner than more indeed "classical" forms, but nevertheless, sense is made and communicated, mission accomplished, etc.

Of course, that comes back to the basic dichotomy of Power To The People vs The Creator Has A Master Plan, but such is life being lived in real time, I'd say.

[David Ayers]

Concerto for Contrabassoon. Surely the only one ever - ?

...but no, Gunther Schuller wrote one, there are some short baroque-y ones, after that not sure...

[JSngry]

Peruse this list:

http://www.robertronnes.com/TheSoloContrabassoonList.html

[David Ayers]

It's not that I wanted there to be more.

[Larry Kart]

Well, mom's the word on this one. I am auditing the 'Insect' symphony.

I have now been twice through Luosto, which I started with first as I thought the project of writing 'outdoor music' (as in Music for the Royal Fireworks) was an interesting starting point. I don't love the wordless vocals though was otherwise more drawn on the second and more attentive listen.

That said, I am not sure whether the freedom to 'do what one likes' - the merciless freedom of all capable contemporary composers - risks also in translating into 'now this happens' 'now this happens' - which I hear often in contemporary music. That can be though because the works are complicated and you don't always get the logic and feel, either in yourself or indeed in the performance. I shall press on.

Re. Nordic composers, I have enjoyed investigating quite a few, but don't feel sure that some of these figures are not over-promoted by their national arts mechanisms. Among this 'Nordic' group I find Magnus Lindberg very compelling and very much to my liking. So far he's the only one I have really taken to...

Some early to mid Lindberg -- e.g. Kraft, Engine, Aura -- struck me as ideal music for a space opera where "Star Wars"-like planet-destroying battleships crash into each other, break up, etc. The sheer sonic snarliness of all this was novel and impressive for a while but only for a while -- no particular sense of "language" accumulated that I could detect. Somewhat later works like the Cello Concerto were less snarly but seemed to me to amount to a lot of noodling. By the time he got to the Clarinet Concerto, with its "Rhapsody in Blue" allusions, I began to lose interest.

[David Ayers]

The first Lindberg I heard was Aura, when Salonen conducted it with the Philharmonia. Quite a show, and I followed up with the CD of that work with BBCSO/Knussen and also the Philharmonia CD released in association with the concerts, which includes Cantigas (with oboe) and the Cello Concerto. The former I especially like.

How much Lindberg I need is another question. I sampled the Ondine 4-CD collection on Spotify and concluded that it was more than I'd get round to. I have the Ondine CD of the Violin Concerto, as yet unplayed. The Clarinet Concerto I have so far ducked.

What I know of his music though I have lived with. For most contemporary composers that's what I need - enough that I can know and care about. But if they are successful they have to write a lot. That's what makes it hard to know where and whether to begin. For me it is quite a good guide if the work actually gets performed - someone thinks it is worth doing. The violin concerto has been adopted by more than one violinist, for example, which is a start, though as it happens I never heard anyone actually do it.

Whether and where to start, how long to stay. Questions questions.

Re. Star Wars, Penderecki wrote the real music for Darth Vader. Nothing for the rebels though.

[MomsMobley]

Aho does what he wants = familiarity, fluency with all major 20th c. 'modernist' streams, as well as the harmonically & texturally adventurous 'romantic' streams preceding, so he was widest possible pallette to techniques/sounds to work with. Plus, like say Hindemith (but more colorful) and Martinu (but less balletic, folkloric) and Villa-Lobos, he clearly enjoys writing for all manner of instruments, ensembles. Aho is often fun but never patronizing or merely 'clever' like so many neo-minimal/pop referent saps.

Larry Kart, I'm surprised you didn't enjoy Symphony #7, not that it's "like" them in formally but for anyone who digs Villa-Lobos, Koechlin, Messiaen...

[Larry Kart]

I dig Koechlin (almost entirely) and Messiaen (mostly); Villa-Lobos's orchestral music, mostly no -- for me, it's just one thing and then another and another. V-L's chamber music (what I've heard of it) and guitar music and what I've heard of the piano music, mostly yes.

Aho's "Minea" sounds like a f---ing film score, and for a movie I wouldn't want to watch. A fair amount of Lindberg (as I said above) gives me a similar feeling, though the non-existent films involved in his case and Aho's would be quite different. Few things feel creepier to me than music that seems more or less programmatic but refers to no program. But maybe "Minea" does?

BTW, I've got a lot of modern (from the '20s on to today) Scandinavian classical music because someone used to get comps of everything from those state-supported labels and sell them to the Jazz Record Mart, where I'd buy anything from those batches that looked interesting. Thus, I think I've got a decent fix on the evolution of modern classical music in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland, etc. (let us not forget Iceland and the mighty madman Liefs). It's a varied and interesting story that allowed room for a fair amount of genuine albeit non-cutting-edge (by the standards of European modernism in, say, Germany, France, and Italy) creativity (e.g. Holmboe, Larsson, Carlstedt, Sven-Erik Back, and many more), but I get the feeling that with Aho, and Saariaho, and Lindberg something has at once broken free in terms of reach and ambition and broken down musically (not that those three composers are of a piece).

[David Ayers]

If we are to apply a swift test on Aho using Mom's parallel with Hindemith, we can arrive at a quick judgement. The works offered up for consideration have been the Insect and Luosto symphonies. How do these measure up to Mathis? The answer is, not at all.

Re. Lindberg, Larry, I think you have it wrong - Aura is a subtle work and not all Star Wars at all. Lindberg is no Boulez, but I still do not think that the charge of 'civic modernism' sticks to him. And Lindberg really does get performed a lot - take a look at the history of performances at his Boosey and Hawkes page. I haven't performed a similar exercise for Aho, Rautavaara, Saariaho, or any of the usual Danes, but I suspect that they travel less well, so to speak. would welcome correction on that if someone wants to dig out the data from their publishers.

[Larry Kart]

If we are to apply a swift test on Aho using Mom's parallel with Hindemith, we can arrive at a quick judgement. The works offered up for consideration have been the Insect and Luosto symphonies. How do these measure up to Mathis? The answer is, not at all.

Re. Lindberg, Larry, I think you have it wrong - Aura is a subtle work and not all Star Wars at all. Lindberg is no Boulez, but I still do not think that the charge of 'civic modernism' sticks to him. And Lindberg really does get performed a lot - take a look at the history of performances at his Boosey and Hawkes page. I haven't performed a similar exercise for Aho, Rautavaara, Saariaho, or any of the usual Danes, but I suspect that they travel less well, so to speak. would welcome correction on that if someone wants to dig out the data from their publishers.

I need to listen again to Aura and the other Lindberg I have. I'm afraid I got hung up on the Cello Concerto at one point several years ago because I was using it rather obsessively in attempt to re-adjust my sound system, listening to maybe the first 10 minutes or so of the work over and over again as I fiddled with speaker placement and the like (there's a good deal of varied sonic info in those first 10 minutes of the Cello Concerto), and in the process the work became quite grating to me. Not a fair way to listen to anything.

[Larry Kart]

Listened to the first two movements of Aura last night before I was interrupted by dinner. Will return for the next two today, but my impression this time to this (middle?) period of Lindberg -- middle, I assume, because it's a good deal less in your face than Kraft and not as soft-centered (or if you prefer, ingratiating) as the Clarinet Concerto -- is that it's mostly ramps, vamps, and fanfares. There's a near continuous sense of, to perhaps coin a term, "adventing" -- of attempts to create an aura (right) of nervous, even intensely anxious, expectation -- but through the first two movements I hear no particular accumulation of dramatic effect or sense of "language," just a lot of "over here, over there, where did I leave that last ostinato"? effects, like a large pile of urgent-in-tone but non-functional, at least in any way I can detect, road signs. And believe me, I've listened to lots of modern music of many sorts over the years and am pretty good, I think, at grasping all sorts of fairly novel language principles, whether I end up hugging them to my chest or not.

I am puzzled, though, by how many of those who have commented on Lindberg's music (e.g. Alex Ross on Aura, for one), get a terrific sense of evolving, accumulating drama from his music, at least of this period (I certainly hear what's happening that-a-way in the Clarinet Concerto, even it threatens to leave me throwing up in my mouth). But if there's an evolving, accumulating aura of neo-symphonic drama in Aura, where is it and/or why am I missing it? I will press on, though.

Ross on Lindberg:

http://www.therestisnoise.com/2006/07/aldeburgh_1995.html

[MomsMobley]

If we are to apply a swift test on Aho using Mom's parallel with Hindemith, we can arrive at a quick judgement. The works offered up for consideration have been the Insect and Luosto symphonies. How do these measure up to Mathis? The answer is, not at all.

Ah, but Moms that sly old foxy grandma never suggested one compare any of those works; she simply posted them because youtube clips were easily available. Comparison with Hindemith is a larger one in terms of eagerness to compose works highlighting disparate intstruments etc. Aho is far more ambitious & prolific a symphonist than Hindemith but if someone wants to draw a big circle around Hindemith's concertos, Villa-Lobos' Choros & Bachianas & symphonies (which I rate high, for the most part, but though I can sing you Bruckner movements from memory, I'm NOT in the slightest hung up on Austro-German/Nielsen/Sibelian 'symphonic development'; a symphony is like a novel, it can be proceed in any way, be shaped like almost anything, even a mandala) etc etc...

That's the context Aho is operating in (with Shostakovich, Schnittke, likely Vagn Holmboe and Allen Pettersen also).

I was a teenage Hindemithian btw and know his music very very well, including nearly all the largely interesting-to-excellent repertoire that's often ignored, not infrequently derided.

Edited November 12, 2014 by MomsMobley

[Larry Kart]

Listened to the rest of Aura. That Sibelian string chorale at the end of the fourth movement -- arrgh. Yes, it does create the sense of an ending, but some 35 minutes of fanfares and tangled "landscape," and this is the payoff?

[MomsMobley]

Edited November 12, 2014 by MomsMobley

[David Ayers]

I find Aura pretty ear-tickling from beginning to end. Amazing near- static chords with slightly shifting (dis)colorations, lovely transitions between contrasting instrumental groups, delightful details and shading. I shall keep Magnus as my own special private friend. Although he is composer in residence with the LPO for the next three years, so I may have to share him.

[JSngry]

Most of the post WWII-born composers I've been discovering and enjoying to any relevant degree have been either Finnish, Estonian, and/or female.

Female, and Polish. Obvious "Threnody..." offshoot, but it's a game not well-played if not played perfectly, and I do think this is.