Aho: Timpani Concerto; Piano Concerto No. 1
Ari-Pekka Maenpaa, timpani. Sonja Fraki, piano.
Turku Philharmonic Orchestra/Erkki Lasonpalo, Eva Ollikainen
BIS 2306
Total Time:  60:17
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

A couple of years ago, the Turku Philharmonic was exploring a variety of lesser-known Sibelius pieces in a series of recordings for Naxos under director Leif Segerstam.  This release of new music by Finnish composer Kalevi Aho (b. 1949) features two of the conductor’s students on the podium.  Aho is a student of Einojuhani Rautavaara and Boris Blacher.  While he was the composer-in-residence at the Lahti Symphony Orchestra his music would be championed by Osmo Vanska with many of his works being recorded.  He is a fairy prolific composer with some 30 concerti, 17 symphonies, and five operas to date.  This recording brings us a relatively recent concerto and one from the late 1980s.

There are very few concertos for percussion and those that do exist tend to require a grand exploration of the variety of instruments in that section.  Evelyn Glennie has managed to help increase the repertoire for performers at the back of the orchestra.  Aho’s Concerto for Timpani (2015) stems from a direct request by the Turku orchestra’s timpanist, Ari-Pekka Maenpaa.  Timpani tend to have a range of sixth.  Their use early on was often limited to a couple of pitches that would essentially emphasize the tonic and dominant thus making them mostly an instrument that added extra emphasis in cadential passages.  In the latter 19^th Century, a pedal device was added that allowed the player to change the pitch of a single timpani.  You may also see some where the pitches are now marked on the pedal, though this is not always reliable as the heads are stretched, or react to humidity and use.  There are five moments in Aho’s concerto that aim to expand how the instrument can be explored.  The opening “Barcarolle” begins rather mysteriously with an extended timpani solo.  Strings enter in quietly, emphasizing specific pitches.  A three-note motif begins to come to the foreground and is expanded upon more in the orchestra with a variety of solo colors.  With a sudden burst of color, the orchestra enters into a more intense, dissonant episode.  The music is an interesting blend of somewhat tonal harmony, but with strong dissonant characteristics.  The rhythmic excitement begins to build as Aho adds different layers to the timpani line.  The movement ends with a cadenza that explores the motivic and thematic lines of the movement as well as interesting techniques of glissandi.  The “Intermezzo” that follows has an opening oboe line that is quite beautiful against a somewhat sinuous and shifting underlying harmony.  The “Allegro ritmico” movement is an exciting moment that helps push us forward (with moments that have an almost Leonard Bernstein feel) before we have one final moment of restraint in the fourth movement that leads to an exciting “Presto” with an “Epilog” that brings us back to the opening completing the circle.  This is quite an interesting work with the central part of the piece being quite exciting.  Even within the expanded harmony here, the music is quite accessible.

Aho’s first piano concerto was composed over 1988-1989.  The first thing one notices is that it is cast in four movements, rather than the typical three.  The conception of the work is a bit on the cerebral side.  Suffice to say that Aho was exploring concepts of numerology and cyclic composition where certain numbers are assigned specific pitches.  Four-note motifs are packaged into four sets that are then further developed as we enter the first movement.  The second movement slows this material down a bit more unpacking it in a rather serene and mysterious way.  The ideas are packed into chords that are set against a swelling orchestral harmony.  The music has an almost jazzy-noir quality at times as it reflects upon the musical material.  A “Toccata” heading gets us back into a musical sound world that starts to shift pitch material to help set things up for the final movement where a sequence of 30 notes are laid out.  Aho’s approach bears some resemblance to twelve-tone technique.  The orchestral forces here are rather huge and one would imagine that the conceptualization here is also a bit of a nut to crack for performers.  The sound of the music has an almost Shostakovich-ian style at first.  But it is clear from the start that the ideas are being spun out quickly and one is drawn in by the drama of the music.  The motivic ideas are strong enough to help listeners engage with the equally dramatic writing.  The rhythmic ideas also engage with exciting syncopations.

These are engaging pieces with committed performances here from soloists and orchestral members alike.  Maenpaa’s performance of the timpani concerto is impeccable with a sort of effortlessness that must be a marvel to watch in concert.  Sonja Frakl is actually a specialist in Aho’s piano music and has recorded his solo piano work.  Her performance here is stunning.  Both are captured in crystal clear sound from the BIS engineers on this hybrid SACD surround stereo release.  The balance between the two works is a bit difficult only because the forces of the piano concerto are considerably larger, so some slight audio adjustment is needed.  What is good about this disc though is that it is a rather good way to introduce oneself to Aho’s work.  The piano concerto was originally premiered by Roland Pontinen.  If that was recorded, it is long OOP.  The album does not indicate if these are premiere recordings, but they may very well be the ones all future ones will be based upon.

Starker Plays Hindemith, Prokofiev & Rautavaara
Janos Starker, cello.
Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, SWR/Andreas von Lukacsy
Baden-Baden and Freiburg Symphony Orchestra, SWR/Ernest Bour; Herbert Blomstedt
SWR Classic SWR19418
Total Time:  74:46
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

Janos Starker (1924-2013) was one of the great cellists of the 20^th Century.  His strengths lie in intonation and tone, a deep resonant sound, and often impeccable musicianship that marks his recordings with orchestra with a sense of musical partnership rather than a showcased soloist with an accompanist.  His approach often causes one to rethink the way the soloist and orchestral writing are blended or support one another in Romantic music while providing a unique clear traversal of more contemporary works.  Here we have a rerelease of three performances the great cellist made in the early 1970s.  This is apparently a straight up reissue of a Hanssler Classic release with a reduced price.  More striking is that these are evidently the only recordings Starker made of the pieces here with the Rautavaara being the unique “first” on CD from that release.

These three concertos are each rather unique in the 20^th Century literature as well with three very distinct musical voices.  In instances of contemporary music, it may be sometimes difficult to discern just how what the performer has accomplished has positively impacted the music.  It is easier in tonal music to be able to discern a slight variation in pitch, for example.  Mainstream concerti also bring with them a level of familiarity that causes the listener to react to the way a performer may tackle the music from a period perspective and interpretive liberty.  With Starker, the most amazing thing is that the listener can easily forget the sheer genius of the performance in the contemporary works he tackled.  The Hindemith performance is marked with clear articulation and phrasing that helps guide the listener through the shape and form of each movement.  The dry acoustic also aids this in Hindemith’s case as it creates equally clear orchestral textures.  But it is in the Prokofiev, a work Starker did not necessarily like, where we can hear the true mark of his virtuosity.  The lyrical phrases literally melt here in his hands and each attach tends to match the other so carefully.  The second movement in particular is an amazing display of continuity in his playing.  The cadenza is stunning here and to appreciate what Starker has accomplished, one need only focus on the way repeated accents and techniques are consistent in each recurrence.  It is beyond masterful in this case.  Whether you appreciate the way Prokofiev’s music tends to move from these somewhat angular lines to the ones that are more Neo-Classical in shape and structure, Starker navigates these with such grace that the shifts seem perfectly natural outgrowths of one another.  It is most amazing to hear just how this helps pull the work together into a coherent whole.  The opening of the Rautavaara allows a similar opportunity to hear how Starker shapes lines and creates a consistent level of attack for each and every note, carefully shaping each phrase.

Each concerto allows a window on three unique musical voices as well.  Hindemith’s classic concerto is filled with the sort of quartal and quintal harmonies of his style here exploring the range of the cello.  The orchestral backdrop creates an additional blend that wavers from supportive clarity to a connection with the soloist’s ideas.  Prokofiev’s work, as mentioned, is one of the more difficult works in the repertoire and requires a balance of soloist and orchestra that must be carefully measured.  Ernest Bour helps Starker realize the interconnectedness of the soloist and orchestra well.  The Rautavaara is an early example of music that stands outside the atonal academic world.  It opens with a cello solo that outlines some of the material that will unfold throughout the work.  Motivic ideas become a unifying, and recurring, factor throughout the music.  The style is in the sort of romantic modernism that would become far more apparent decades later, but in Rautavaara we here a deeper connection to his own Finnish musical past extending from Sibelius.  The recording was made in 1975, less than a decade after the completion of the piece.  The opening of the “Largo” is one of many stunning moments, the other being a brief romantic moment in the finale.

The sound here is really superb with great detail of orchestral textures and Starker’s placement against the ensemble is well balanced.  There may simply be no better performances of these works.  The Prokofiev feels even more significant sandwiched between the other pieces here.  It makes this reduced price release an even more enticing chance for fans of 20^th Century music!