Kaveli Aho: Piano Music

Known for his orchestral output – 16 symphonies and 21 concertos to date! – Finnish composer Kalevi Aho was recently described in Gramophone as having ‘a strong claim to the title of greatest living symphonist’. But Aho has also composed a large number of works for smaller forces – quartets and quintets, duos and solo pieces. On the present disc, the Finnish pianist Sonja Fräki presents Aho’s output for solo piano, comfortably fitting on one disc, but nevertheless spanning some 30 years of a long career. The disc opens with his earliest published work, the Nineteen Preludes from 1965-68, written before the composer had begun any formal studies of either composition or the piano. As in much of his other music, the works for piano display his characteristic fascination with the virtuosic and technically brilliant side of music-making. On the present disc, this quality comes to the fore in the Sonata, with its sparkling first movement and percussive, toccata-like second movement followed by a searching Tranquillo molto, characterized by a trill which continues almost without interruption throughout the movement. Solo II is likewise a challenge for any pianist, forming part of a series of big (roughly ten-minute) solo works for various instruments, several of which have been recorded by BIS.

Price: $28.98

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