AHO: String Quartets Nos. 1-3 / Stenhammar Quartet / BIS SACD-2609
As a composer, Kalevi Aho is not one of those about whom one can be neutral in one’s feelings. On the contrary, his music stirs up some of the strongest opinions one can feel in both directions. Donald Vroon, the owner and executive editor of American Record Guide, has stated that his music is rubbish that will be completely forgotten 10 years after his death while I consider him the greatest living composer—a judgment made after listening to and reviewing a wide cross-section of his output, mostly on Bis Records. I would also add that my opinion is shared by the former owner of Bis, Robert von Bahr, because he told me so in an email.
What makes Aho so great? Three things. Firstly, his music is always bursting with interesting and original ideas, and he does not generally repeat patterns. Secondly, his music is extremely communicative; it arouses strong feelings, and does so in a way that is heard to describe. And thirdly, he has an entirely individual way with tnhe texture of his music, particularly in large-scale works like his symphonies, concerti and chamber music for groups of instruments.
Naturally, his palette is limited in the case of his string quartets whoere he must use two violins, viola and cello, for that is the configuration of the form in which he has chosen to work. I think that what surprised me was to see that none of these three quartets are first-time recordings, which many of his Bis releases include yet in doing an extensive Google search I could not turn up another recording of any of these three works.
What’s interesting about these pieces is that they all come from the earlier stage of Aho’s career as a composer. The first quartet was written in 1967, the second in 1970, and the third in 1971. Another strange thing is the sequencing on this SACD, placing the first quartet last on the album.
And there is one more anomaly in the recorded performances present4d here: they are all played in straight tone, which is freaking ridiculous because at the time thee quartets were written, not one string quartet in the world was using straight tone. which means that this is NOT how the composer heard his music in its time. But try telling thay to stubborn, ideologically-driven musicians.
The first quartet certainly does begin in a strange way for Aho, the music sounded very much neo-Classic, in fact even sounding more like Vivaldi than Mozart or Haydn. But here is a shocker: at the time he wrote this, Aho had not yet studied music! He just wrote this piece—and, an even earlier (unpublished) quartet the previous year—based on the kind of music he heard on the radio! Considering this, it’s surprising that he was able to create an original and unified piece, but I will be the first to admit that this is the only work I’ve heard by Aho that is just pretty good and not really brilliant in any way…although the fast jig or reel music in the middle of the second movement is typical of the Aho to come, suddenly bursting out of its seams with ideas and an almost explosive energy. He wasn’t quite the “real Aho” yet (he didn’t begin his formal studies of music until the following year), but he was on his way. The third movement of this quartet sounds a bit more like early Mozart and less like Vivaldi, but it is still stylistically consonant with what came before. Let me put it this way: for a young composer who was consciously basing his aesthetic on “found sound” coming over the radio, Aho created he a much finer piece than anything Alfred Schnittke ever wrote (Schnittke is one of my least favorite composers of all time, a thief and a fraud). The last-movement “Andante” is almost like a canon, harking back in both form and harmony to an even earlier time in musical history, but in the development section Aho is suddenly his own man, morphing his theme in different ways. After a pause, the last fourth of the movement is a chorale.
Luckily for Aho, his composition teacher was an excellent one, Einojuhani Rautavaara. Rautavaara immediately recognized that this young man had talent, told him that he didn’t need to study tonal harmony any further, but could jump into the world of modern composition both feet first. Perhaps it was a bit of a fast track, but happily, Rautavaara was right. The young man thrived in Rautavaara’s musical environment, as can be heard in the String Quartet No. 2 from 1970. Interestingly, Aho’s opening music here still leans toward tonality although its harmonic base is more fluid, and there is a real “string melody” for the opening theme, started by the viola before being joined by the two violins and then the viola. Yet already with this piece, we hear the “real” Aho in terms of the emotional content of the piece. It is slow and moody, very heartfelt, but not wallowing in self-pity or bathos. Interestingly, the fast second movement, despite its jolly rhythms, uses bitonality in such a way that the listener receives conflicted feelings. Is it really “jolly,” or is it more conflicted emotionally, caught somewhere between angst and joy? The listener is left to draw his or her own conclusion. The third and final movement, also a slow “Adagio,” returns us to rather melancholy feelings.
The third quartet is in seven movements. Although not quite yet the Aho we know from the late 1980s on, it is still an advance on the second quartet in terms of his being able to fragment and develop his themes in a more complex way. (I wonder if the Donald Vroons of the world would like a piece like this or still find it too far above their pay grade to appreciate?) The top violin plays an out-of-tonality theme while the second violin and viola play commentary on the edge of their strings. Once again, the second-movement “Andante” is moody, but to my ears more pensive than melancholy, but it is in the third-movement “Presto” that a harbinger of the Aho to come suddenly jumps out of the shadows and grabs us by the throat, and from this point forward the music in the quartet also becomes more complex as well as more musically unified. By the last movement (“Allegretto”), Aho is experimenting with clashing tonalities and very quirky harmonies. Donald Vroon would not be happy.
In closing my review of this very interesting album, a word on the photo of the Stenhammar Quartet which appears in the booklet. They are standing inside what appears to be a thatched hut. naked from the waist up and all wearing wraps or saris. I’m not sure if this is meant to symbolize anything, but it is surely the strangest photo I’ve ever seen of a string quartet in my life. Make of it what you will!
—© 2024 Lynn René Bayley
