Description
Release Date: 01/01/98
Kokkonen's solo piano music has not had much prominence. This collection traces its development in reverse chronology. W
Kokkonen's solo piano music has not had much prominence. This collection traces its development in reverse chronology. We start with the very imaginative and transparently dreamy, leaf-swirling and driftingly dissonant Bagatelles. This contrasts with the little Religioso. The 1953 Sonatina was written for the composer to play rather than to any commission. It has some of the centred placid feel of the Bagatelles but its rumpled explosive air is redolent of Shostakovich. The dissonance has cleared for the Two Little Preludes written in 1943 while Kokkonen was a young officer in the Finnish Army conflict with the USSR. This is melodious and springy music - playful and wistful. Pielavesi is saturated with nature impressions absorbed during summer holidays at his brother's home. Lyrical and free of discord it epitomises the Scandinavian summer in language that darts and lulls. It has a vaguely French Ravelian accent but the Finnish voice is strong. It is a sheerly lovely piece across movements entitled: Preludietto, Nocturne, Rain, Clouds at Evening and Morning Wind. The last piece with its cut-glass and brittle spray of notes is is the most original of the five. Young proficient pianists should seek out this music - it will captivate. From the year before the suite comes the 1938 Impromptu which is stormily rhetorical in a way reminiscent of a turbulent Rachmaninov Etude-Tableau
| Label: Alba Records |
| Genre: Classical |
| Run Time: 60 mins |
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