The Fuga label boasts a fine catalogue of organ music, drawing on the rich array of organs in Finland and its native musical musical talent. The present disc takes us to the granite-walled Kallio Church in a district of Helsinki, which is blessed with two organs, a large Åkerman & Lund in the French Romantic style, and a choir organ by the Kangasala company in the Baroque style (1987).

The ingenious programme presented on the present release is ideally suited to this lovely choir organ, which is considered the finest of its type in Finland. It has two manuals and a pedal division, with 22 stops including 16' Subbass and Fagott (bassoon). A light, simple and sensitive keyboard mechanism allows remarkable clarity of articulation. The organ's elegant case (illustrated in the booklet) also serves as a true soundboard (a rather uncommon feature), contributing significantly to the organ's distinctive sonic signature.

Iina-Karita Hakalahti's training as an organist brought her to do research on Iberian Baroque organ music, her doctoral degree (2008) being a study of Francisco Correa de Arauxo's 'Facultad organica' of 1626 as a source of information on contemporary performance practice. She is also a great admirer of the organ works of JS Bach, and her programme provides a very interesting comparison between the Baroque organ school of Northern Germany and that of the Iberian Peninsula. Carefully selected Iberian works are interspersed with pieces from JS Bach's Clavierübung III (1739), which amongst the other volumes, he uniquely dubbed "prepared for the lovers and connoisseurs".

The programme begins with a Batalha by Fr. Diego da Conceição, a C17th Portuguese composer about whom little is known. Listeners may be more familiar with the Italian term 'Battalaglia" - a somewhat satirical view of battle music popular from the Renaissance through the Baroque. Conceição's is one of the less boisterous battles, and he conjures a vision of the rather formal pre-battle displays as each side sized each other's formation up, with some cheerful pageantry from the choir organ's fiery trumpets and a very convincing echo exchange of trumpet calls, the subbass suggesting distant drums.

A distinctive musical form developed by those Spanish Baroque composers represented in the programme is the 'Tiento', somewhat similar to the English 'Fantasy' or Italian 'Ricercare' of the time. Iina-Karita Hakalahti chooses a variety of moods and illustrates several of the Tiento types, such as the 'Tiento de falsas' (Track 9), which uses dissonant notes for emotional effect, and the 'Tiento de medio registro' (Tracks 7 & 8), which uses a particular feature of the Kallio choir organ, where different stops can be separately set for each half of the keyboard. I particularly liked Francisco Correa de Arauxo's 'Tiento de medio registro de baxón de dézimo tono', where the lower part of the keyboard was set to the Dulcian stop (the Dulcian was a dark buzzy wind instrument beloved of Renaissance Dance Bands). The Dulcian's running tenor solo plays under a descant of sweet principals to delightful effect.

Throughout, Iina-Karita Hakalahti's scholarly expertise in these marvellous and little-known Iberian pieces is evident, but lightly-worn; she clearly has a great affection for this music. Her other affinity, for JS Bach's organ music, is also well in evidence. The two fine chorale preludes from Clavierübung III have a clear and steady bass line but subtly contoured voices (as reputed to be Bach's own playing style). With the resources of the choir organ, she illuminates their often complex and virtuosic contrapuntal architecture from within, with liquid flutes, soft reeds and fiery combinations as required. Completing the programme in great style is JSB's magnificent Prelude and Fugue in e minor (BWV 548), Bach glorying in his own phenomenal virtuosity. Here again the clarity of every voice is remarkable, not least due to the superb engineering, and the full power of the Kallio choir organ is fully unleashed, Hakalahti's fine sense of improvisational fantasy providing a very satisfying rendition.

Engineer Mika Koivusalo's recording is as usual impeccable in capturing both the intimate, rich tonal detail
of the Kallio organ, but also in the surround track a full sense of the accompanying church acoustic. While this may be a relatively small organ, it packs a hefty punch, and is not lacking in floor-shaking bass fundamentals. Koivusalo also illustrates the booklet with his colour photos of the organ in architectural context as well as a close-up of its clean-lined console. Iina-Karita Hakalahti provides her own erudite and eloquent notes in Finnish and English, and there is also useful information about the organ.

Altogether another excellent and unmissable addition to Fuga's organ series. Highly recommended.

Copyright © 2010 John Miller and HRAudio.net

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