Content:

Kalevi Aho
Symphonies Nos. 5 & 7



Artists:
Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra
Max Pommer, conductor
Kalevi Aho, assistant conductor

Genres:
Orchestral
Finnish contemporary

Features:

Booklet with liner notes written by the composer, in English, German, French and Finnish

Format:
CD

Released:
June 1991

Catalogue No.:
ODE 765-2

EAN/UPC Code:
0761195076521

Track listing

CD 72:45
Kalevi Aho (1949-)
1 Symphony No. 5 (1975-76) 29:05
Symphony No. 7 "Insect Symphony" (1988) 43:40
2 I. The Tramp, the Parasitic Hymenopter and its Larva 7:25
3 II. The Butterflies (The Foxtrot and Tango of the Butterflies) 4:32
4 III. The Dungbeetles (Grief over the Stolen Ball of Dung) 3:30
5 IV. The Grasshoppers 6:10
6 V. The Ants (the Working Music of the Ants and War Marches I and II) 9:49
7 VI. Dayflies (Lullaby for the Dead Dayflies) 11:59


Complete description

This CD contains two symphonies by Finnish composer Kalevi Aho. His multi-layered, polyphonic Fifth Symphony is coupled with the six-movement suite-like "Insect Symphony", which is regarded as one of the leading works of Finnish Post-Modernism. Based on Aho's opera Insect Life (1987), each of the six movements of the tragi-comic symphony is named after an insect, and every single movement constitutes a separate micro world of its own.

The recordings were made in Leipzig in spring 1991, with the Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra led by its then Chief Conductor Max Pommer. The composer is featured as Assistant Conductor in the Fifth Symphony, and the Seventh Symphony includes solos by Andreas Hartmann and Hans-Werner Mehling (violin), Wolfgang Weber (cello), Dieter Zahn (double bass), Eberhard Uhling (euphonium) and Stefan Sandow (tuba).