Thanks Colin, it is an extraordinary work and I already want to listen to it again. Some clear influences including DS and Antheil but it is also not like anything else either. I can't afford all the symphs, so after No 4 what would be your next recommendation?
Jeffrey
I think that the Symphony No.10 is a masterpiece-it has the most beautiful and moving slow movement-but it is more 'advanced' in idiom('wilder' in Johan's terminology). Perhaps, therefore, I would suggest Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2. They were written when Aho was 20 and 21 years old and the composer was obviously still finding his feet but in both there is a clear sense of purpose and forward movement. The first and fourth movements of the 1st are fugues and the 2nd is entirely a triple fugue in one movement. Aho's explanation is worth quoting as an indication of his musical thinking-
"One(factor in his decision to use a fugue in a symphonic context) was a reaction against the developmental trends in the modern music of the 1960s. Tonality had broken down, melody had become a taboo subject, and musical form had become so fragmented that the formal logic of modern compositions was often very difficult to follow. In consequence an abyss opened up between the concert-going public and modern music. Modern music was displaced beyond the realms of normal concert activity; it came to occupy its own ghetto. The fugue form, which had already been pronounced dead, seemed to offer one possible solution-one well worth exploring-to the problem of reconciling the form of modern music and the reception it was accorded. This solution was to remain close to the traditional stereotype without hiding the structure at an unfathomably deep level."
These sentiments are 'music' to my ears. A contemporary composer seeking to communicate with his audience but without lapsing into either neo-romanticism or minimalism(not that I dislike either of these necessarily!),
I am extremely pleased that you rate the 4th symphony as "extraordinary"(obviously using the word in a complimentary sense) and hope that-in time-you will be able to explore more of the work of a composer I certainly have come to esteem.
