Kalevi Aho - Symphony No.10; Rejoicing of the Deep Waters

Kalevi AHO (b. 1949)

Syvien vesien juhla, fantasia orkesterille (Rejoicing of the Deep Waters, fantasy for orchestra) (1995)  Symphony No. 10 (1996) 

Lahti Symphony Orchestra

Osmo Vänskä 

rec. March 1996 (fantasy), February 1997 (symphony)

Aho’s opera Insect Life may have been rejected at first but that didn’t stop him dabbling in the genre. Rejoicing of the Deep Waters is based on his opera, Before We All Have Drowned, which has since been performed in Helsinki and Lūbeck. And even though it was written for the city of Lahti’s 90th anniversary it’s certainly not celebratory in tone. In fact the work begins with a lovelorn surgical nurse throwing herself off a bridge, the ensuing story told in a series of flashbacks. 

There is certainly a dramatic thrust to this score, yet it is framed in a surprisingly conventional musical idiom. And despite the seemingly grim plot there is little Nordic angst on show here, confirmed by the music’s almost classical restraint and sense of proportion. Indeed, it’s just like a conventional overture, with a discernible dramatic ‘arch’, and if it has a message it’s in the final words of the opera: ‘Listen, so that you learn to listen / and save us / before we are all drowned.’ It makes an attractive, if lightweight, curtain raiser to the more substantial symphony that follows. excerpt 

Speaking of classical structures, Aho’s Tenth Symphony – a joint commission from the Lahti Symphony Orchestra and the Finnish Association for Mental Health – has its origins in a performance Aho heard of Mozart’s Symphony No. 39, played by the Lahti band. An intriguing source of inspiration, perhaps, but not one that readily comes to mind when listening to this towering score. 

Admittedly, as Anne Weller points out in her liner-notes, Aho only uses the first three notes of the Mozart symphony’s main theme to launch his Tenth Symphony. The Allegro certainly starts off with some delicacy and charm excerpt but it’s soon clear this is not going to be a sunny work. The ever-present timps rumble like distant thunder as we move into a darker, gong-tormented world and back into another, more elegant, lightly sprung phase. Throughout there is an admirable clarity and lightness of step that is most appealing. 

As always Aho is a master of unusual contrasts and unexpected timbres. The extra resources required – among them soprano and alto trombones and a piccolo clarinet – give you some idea of the work’s colour palette. The Prestissimo has some fevered string playing against a rather ghostly background. excerpt It’s unsettled – and unsettling – with a macabre rattling figure underlining it all. Macabre would certainly be one way of describing the mood of this movement, whose timps and-tam tam rear up from time to time. 

It’s not nearly as uncompromising as it sounds. Indeed, out of the turmoil arises a luminous little melody that takes us to the end of the Prestissimo and segues neatly with the yearning string theme that begins the 20-minute Adagio. This is music of great intensity, not a million miles from the innig Adagios we associate with Mahler. excerpt Not only that, there is a wonderful transparency to the writing here that also reminds me of Mahler, albeit with Aho’s own imaginative touches. 

Don’t expect angst, for this Adagio is shot through with passages of great poise and tenderness. Extraordinarily, Aho binds these disparate sound worlds into a very convincing whole, the hushed playing of the Lahti band riveting throughout. And the peroration that begins to build at 8:42 has an unmistakable, echt-Mahlerian feel, matching weight with detail. Most importantly this symphony never postures or lapses into empty rhetoric; indeed, Aho’s unfailing directness and drive are what make this music so invigorating. 

Yes, there is a series of cataclysms – shrieking clarinets and timps – yet Aho does ‘modulate out of the key of self-abasement – to borrow Forster’s phrase – into something more stoic, noble even. And what an extraordinary climax to this movement, a long fade to silence, followed by a quirky, virtuosic Vivacissimo. excerpt Again I was struck by the natural perspectives and balances in this recording. It’s the sound one might hear from a good seat in the stalls. 

Longueurs? Vänskä makes sure there aren’t any. And just when you think the end is in sight Aho throws in another eruptive passage that carries the symphony to its powerful close. Stirring stuff, adroitly done.