Kari Vuola : CONTRASTS – WORKS FOR ORGAN

   in Choir & Organ (Nov, 2012)
Kari Vuola presents a fibrous juxtaposition of Bach and Buxtehude praeludia with four terse and chilly contemporary Finnish passacaglias. On the face of it a creative and interesting programme, the Finnish works are nevertheless an acquired taste. Aulis Sallinen’s highly rhetorical Chaconne pro Organo is the most imaginative, evoking the horns of ships as they sail out to sea. The Buxtehude and Bach works, both A major and A minor Preludes & Fugues, are delivered with a pious reverence that borders on the tedious. There is a difference between monumental and indigestible, and Vuola’s heavy and ponderous up-beat motives in particular tip this towards the latter. The organ is a late …