Karg-Elert: Music for Piano & Organ Annikka Konttori-Gustafsson & Jan Lehtola

• Sigfrid Karg-Elert (1877-1933): Pelléas et Mélisande, Op. 46 (Arr. S. Karg-Elert):
• 1I. At the Castle Gate04:04
• 2II. Mélisande03:58
• 3III. A Spring in the Park02:12
• 4IV. The 3 Blind Sisters02:41
• 5V. Pastorale02:10
• 6VI. Mélisande at the Spinning Wheel02:44
• 7VII. Entr'acte04:00
• 8VIII. The Death of Mélisande05:22
• Poesien, Op. 35:
• 9No. 1, In memoriam13:29
• 10No. 2, Dialog04:16
• 11No. 3, Epigramm04:10
• 12No. 4, Parabel03:41
• 13No. 5, Ideale04:03
• Silhouetten, Op. 29:
• 14No. 1, Cantilene03:14
• 15No. 2, Aubade (Morgenständchen)02:46
• 16No. 3, Alte Tanzweise05:05
• 17No. 4, Berceuse mignonne (Wiegenliedchen)03:01
• 18No. 5, Quasi minuetto03:04
• 19No. 6, Tempo di ballo04:24
• 20No. 7, Scherzino02:45
• Andante cantabile in E-Flat Major, JS 30b:
• 21Andante cantabile in E-Flat Major, JS 30b04:20
• Total Runtime01:25:29

Info for Karg-Elert: Music for Piano & Organ

As the popularity of domestic music-making grew through the nineteenth century, it brought first the piano and, then, often the harmonium into well-off living-rooms across the western world. Composers naturally responded, with original works and arrangements: Sibelius’ Andante cantabile was written after a visit to relatives who had both instruments in their salon; Karg-Elert, by contrast, was one of the world’s outstanding virtuosi on both harmonium and organ and composed with his concert public in mind. This recording thus revives long-forgotten sonorities that once would have been very familiar.

Annikka Konttori-Gustafsson, piano
Jan Lehtola, organ

Annikka Konttori-Gustafsson
studied with Izumi Tateno at the Sibelius Academy and with Klaus Schilde at the Hochschule für Musik Detmold and Hochschule der Künste Berlin. She obtained an artistic doctorate on the music of Olivier Messiaen at the Sibelius Academy in 2001.

Outside her native Finland she has appeared as a soloist, chamber musician and Lied pianist in Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States, performing a wealth of Finnish music and of French twentieth-century repertoire. She has made radio recordings in Finland and Switzerland, and her discography includes music by Kazuo Fukushima (works for solo piano and duo with the autist Liisa Ruoho), Messiaen’s song-cycle Harawi (with Tuula-Marja Tuomela), organ-piano duos (with Jan Lehtola) and vocal and piano music by Ernest Pingoud.

As university lecturer in piano and doctoral studies at the Sibelius Academy, Annikka Konttori-Gustafsson’s duties include teaching at the DocMus doctoral school, supervising doctoral students and giving seminars. She has also given Lied courses and piano master-classes in Finland and Germany.

Dr. Jan Lehtola
is one of the most successful and progressive Finnish organists of his generation. He has appeared with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Tapiola Sinfonietta, the Lahti Symphony, Tampere Philharmonic and Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestras and the St Michel Strings and he has performed at many international festivals. e conductors with whom he has performed include Juha Kangas, Kent Nagano, Sakari Oramo, Leif Segerstam, Muhai Tang and Osmo Vänskä.

Jan Lehtola o en works with composers and has given more than 150 world and regional premieres. He was the Artistic Director of the Organo Novo Festival in Helsinki in 2007–16 and Chairman of the Finnish Organum Society in 2009–14. He has recorded for the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) and can be heard on more than 30 commercial recordings, one of them an album of the complete album music of William Humphreys Dayas for Toccata Classics, released on tocc 0285.

He studied the organ in Helsinki (with Olli Porthan and Kari Jussila), in Amsterdam (with Jacques van Oortrmerssen and Jean Boyer), Stuttgart (with Ludger Lohmann), Lyon (with Louis Robilliard) and Paris (with Naji Hakim). He graduated from the Church Music Department of the Sibelius Academy, gaining his diploma with distinction in 1998. In 2000 he gave his Sibelius Academy debut recital in Kallio Church, Helsinki, and in 2005 received a Doctorate for his dissertation on Oskar Merikanto as a transmitter of European in uences to Finland. He is a Lecturer in Organ Music in the Sibelius Academy. He is also active as a lecturer and a teacher of master-classes.

Booklet for Karg-Elert: Music for Piano & Organ