Jan Lehtola – Merikanto: Organ Works (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:19:04 minutes | 656 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Toccata Classics
Oskar Merikanto (1868–1924) made an enormous contribution to music-making in Finland, and to organ music in particular, as teacher, virtuoso performer and authority on performance practice, reforming the approach to the organ in both church and concert- hall. It was thought that all of his organ music was known and recorded, but recent discoveries have added a number of previously unsuspected works to his catalogue: a striking concert fantasia, an early funeral march, some pedal studies, a vast series of chorale preludes – some of them beautifully crafted miniatures, others only aphoristic ideas – and an organ transcription of a piano piece by Mendelssohn. This release is timed to mark the centenary of his death, on 17 February 1924.
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Jan Lehtola, Mari-Anni Hilander and Henri Tikkanen – Axel Ruoff: Organ Music, Volume Five (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:18:28 minutes | 1,31 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Toccata Classics
This final instalment of the organ compositions of Axel Ruoff (born in Stuttgart in 1957) presents two starkly contrasted sides of his musical personality: three of them, for voice and organ, are concerned with the spiritual – two even addressing head-on the issue of death itself – and are thus solemn and hieratic, whereas the concluding work is a whimsical, tongue-in-cheek set of variations on ‘Happy Birthday’, written as a present for Ruoff’s publisher on his 80th birthday.
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Jan Lehtola and Petri Komulainen – Lux: Organ Works, Vol. 2 (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:17:26 minutes | 1,27 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Toccata Classics
Friedrich Lux (1820–95) was one of those musicians who formed the fabric of musical life in nineteenth-century Germany: though he worked away from the major cities, as conductor, teacher, organist, organiser and composer, he was an indispensable element of the communities in which he worked. His large body of organ music, as good as unknown before now, brings together elements of the musical language of Bach, Mendelssohn and Schumann, in works that range from the intimate to the grandiose.This second volume brings some of his many transcriptions to the fore.
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Nils Schweckendiek, Jan Lehtola, Helsinki Chamber Choir – Riemuitkaamme! – A Finnish Christmas (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:13:50 minutes | 1,19 GB | Genre: Choral
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS
Riemuitkaamme! is an imaginative and unconventional selection of choral music associated with Christmas as it is celebrated in Finland. Several of the pieces are by Finnish composers – Sibelius, Rautavaara and Madetoja, to name a few – while others have become part of the Christmas traditions of the country despite their international background. Among these Berlioz’ The Shepherds’ Farewell and Tchaikovsky’s Christ, when a Child… are quite late additions compared to the medieval hymns Puer natus in Bethlehem, Ecce novum gaudium and Angelus emittitur. All three of these were included in the collection Piae cantiones from 1582, the oldest Finnish music publication. Here, they are performed in settings by various composers from different countries and eras – forming a kind of soundtrack of Christmases past and present, distant and close. Contemporary music forms an important part of the activities of the Helsinki Chamber Choir and Nils Schweckendiek, and true to form, the team includes a world premiere recording in their celebrations: Aattoilta, by the Canadian-born composer Matthew Whittall.
Read more![Jan Lehtola, Anna-Leena Haikola, Annikka Konttori-Gustafsson - Stöhr: Solo & Chamber Works for Organ (2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2023/04/09/ar8jx0lhpa2ac_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
Jan Lehtola, Anna-Leena Haikola, Annikka Konttori-Gustafsson – Stöhr: Solo & Chamber Works for Organ (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:15:18 minutes | 1,10 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Toccata Classics
Like Korngold, Toch, Schoenberg, Zeisl and Zemlinsky, Richard Stöhr (1874–1967) was one of many Austrian composers driven into American exile by the Nazis. His generous output of music, being rediscovered at last in these Toccata Classics recordings, includes seven symphonies, much chamber music, songs, and choral and piano pieces. His output for organ is not extensive, but its quality is high: the instrument plays an important role in a number of Stöhr’s orchestral works, and here Stöhr presents the organ in two thoroughly attractive duos and an imposing solo sonata. The Sonata and Intermezzi sit downstream from Brahms in the tradition of Viennese classicism; the chromatic touches in the later Suite lean towards the language of Korngold.
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Jan Lehtola – Axel Ruoff: Complete Works for Organ, Vol. 4 (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:24:36 minutes | 1,35 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Toccata Classics
The organ works of Axel Ruoff, born in Stuttgart in 1957, constitute one of the most important contributions to the literature for the instrument by any composer since Messiaen. Stylistically, his music unites the French cathedral tradition of composers like Langlais, Dupré and Guillou with the concern for counterpoint and logic heard in Reger and later German figures. Like Messiaen, Ruoff often finds stimulus in religious sources; unlike him, it is biblical narrative that inspires many of Ruoff’s works, and he uses the unparalleled resources of the modern symphonic organ in his response to some of the most dramatic scenes in the Old Testament, writing music of freewheeling energy and uncompromising power.
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Jan Lehtola – Lux: Complete Works for Organ, Vol. 1 (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:18:11 minutes | 1,25 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Toccata Classics
Friedrich Lux (1820–95) was one of the breed of musicians who bound together musical life in nineteenth-century Germany: though he worked away from the major cities, as conductor, teacher, organist, organiser and composer, he was an indispensable element of the communities in which he worked. His large body of organ music, as good as unknown before now, brings together elements of the musical language of Bach, Mendelssohn and Schumann, in works that range from the intimate to the grandiose.
(more…)