Karg-Elert and Sibelius - Music for Piano and Organ

The Guardian 80

Konttori-Gustafsson/Lehtola
(Toccata Classics)

No instrument epitomises the spirit of domestic music-making in the second half of the 19th century more vividly than the harmonium, the reed organ that became a must-have adornment for middle-class homes across Europe in that period. Many composers of the era wrote pieces for the instrument, and for the equally cosy combination of harmonium and piano. Among them was the young Sibelius. His 1887 Andante Cantabile, for solo harmonium, is the final work on this odd disc. The rest of the sequence is made up works for harmonium and piano. There are two substantial cycles of pieces, Poesien and Silhouetten, by Sigfrid Karg-Elert, best known now for his organ works, as well as his 1905 transcription of eight movements from Sibelius’s score for Maeterlinck’s play Pelléas and Mélisande.

By opting to use a church organ for their recording rather than the harmonium for which the pieces were intended, Annikka Konttori-Gustafsson and Jan Lehtola take a sledgehammer to crack a modest musical nut. Lehtola’s organ often swamps textures that would have survived with the more limited tonal range and power of the harmonium, while the church acoustic means the music-making is far from the charming domestic affair for which these pieces were imagined.