Special offer. Harry Ahmas: Organ Music
Jan Lehtola (organ), Petri Komulainen (horn)
A welcome introduction to the Finnish composer whose organ music echoes Petr Eben’s angular tonalism. The organ’s clean, immediate sound adds brilliant clarity. The sonata deserves wide currency.
Special offer. Harry Ahmas: Organ Music
Jan Lehtola (organ), Petri Komulainen (horn)
Purchase product
A welcome introduction to the Finnish composer whose organ music echoes Petr Eben’s angular tonalism. The organ’s clean, immediate sound adds brilliant clarity. The sonata deserves wide currency.
About
As Principal Bassoon in the Lahti Symphony Orchestra, Harri Ahmas (b. 1957) is one of Finland’s most highly regarded orchestral musicians. But he is also the composer of a substantial body of music, including four symphonies, eight concertos, much chamber music and a generous number of works for wind band. Some grandiose and powerful music for organ is threaded through his composing career, too, much of it composed for the musician who plays it here, Jan Lehtola. Coincidentally, Dr Lehtola, Finland’s leading concert organist, is a native of Lahti, the industrial town inland from Helsinki brought to international prominence by the Sibelius recordings it made under its former chief conductor Osmo Vänskä – who is a Patron of Toccata Classics.
Contents and tracklist
Awards and reviews
December 2019
A welcome introduction to the Finnish composer whose organ music echoes Petr Eben’s angular tonalism. The organ’s clean, immediate sound adds brilliant clarity. The sonata deserves wide currency.
January/February 2021
Ahmas’s music is exciting and engaging – the opening Veloce (one of Four bagatelles for horn and organ) has all the fantastical energy and sonority reminiscent of Jean Guillou
January/February 2020
While this is not a disc for the general organ listener, it will certainly be of interest to anybody interested in contemporary Finnish music or contemporary organ music of this stylistic character. Lehtola’s total commitment and understanding of this repertoire is never in doubt.
