concerto

Kalevi Aho has a natural productivity that is never forced: his composition process flows as naturally as breathing.

"Take note not just of the eloquence of the cello lines but also of the transparency, the delicacy, the weightless loveliness of so much of the orchestral writing."

"Kalevi Aho has been one of the major concertogenists, if I may coin that word, composing no fewer than 37 since 1981."

"With my works and with the way I write them, I advocate for the human touch in our increasingly cold and technological world," writes composer Kalevi Aho. This column is part of the series where composers and other music makers write about their music.

"The assurance of the two soloists is matched by performances of pyrotechnical brilliance from the Turku Philharmonic players under their two conductors. The recorded sound is of the usual BIS standard of excellence, and the album as a whole is a valuable addendum to the label’s ongoing representative of this indefatigable figure."

"Art should be able to stir us, to wake us from our dreaming and our torpor, so that we should be forced to take a stand on the work and explain to ourselves what it means. If a composition is capable of this, then it has at the same time been able to activate the listener both emotionally and intellectually."