Kalle Toivio Organ Concert - Bio & Program
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KALLE TOIVIO, ORGAN
Septembember 18, 2021
DIETERICH BUXTEHUDE (c.1637–1707) Praeludium in g BuxWV 148
ANTONIO VIVALDI (1678–1741) Concerto in B-flat Major (La Cetra) Op. 9 No. 9 (RV 530) Transcription for organ by Kalle Toivio
I. Allegro
II. Largo e spiccato
III. Allegro
TIMO KIISKINEN (b. 1960) Timeline– A History of Organ music in one Piece (2017)
"All the good music has already been written by people with wigs and stuff"
(Frank Zappa)
1. Tempus fugit. Hesterna–Time Flies. Yesterday
2. Dies peracti. Ricercar undt Nachtanz–Days Off
3. Praeludium–Prelude
4. Choral
5. Romance
6. Distantia–Distance
7. Postludium
IMPROVISATION ON SUBMITTED THEMES
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PROGRAM NOTES
Dieterich Buxtehude (c.1637–1707): Praeludium in g BuxWV 148
The North German evolution in organ music reahced its zenith in the owrks of Dieterich Buxtehude. Little is known about his life in certainty. Buxtehude was born about 1637, probably in Helsingborg. The Buxtehude family, like many others who had settled in Scandinavia, was clearly of German origin. Buxtehude's father was a respected organist in Helsingborg. In 1668 Buxtehude was elected to succeed Franz Tunder as the organist and Werkmeister of St. Mary's in Lübeck, one of the most prestigious positions in all of Northern Germany at the time. Buxtehude remained in this position for the next 39 years until his death in 1707. Buxtehude's imaginative concepts in composition produced a complex mixture of Frescobaldian rhetorical style combined with sophisticated version of North German 'speaking style' and Italianate expressiveness, as well as other trans-Alpine aspects of performance concepts.
Literary rhetoric was thought to be a fundamental tool for Baroque compers and performers. Just like Bach fifty years later, th seeds of knowledge for Buxtehude's conception of musical rhetoric and the rhetorical schemata were planted during his early education at a Latin School. The era of Humanism had established a firm link between music and rhetoric which by Buxtehude's time had become an indispensible part of the compositional process.
Of the five major categories of classical oratory the second, Dispositio, expressed the arrangement of the material and discovered in the first category, Inventio. Dispositio served the purpose of structuring the thoughts of a speech or a musica composition in such a 'dramatic' manner that compassion and pathos were aroused as effectively as possible in the audience. Rhetorical parts of the Dispositio are: Exordium–introduction (functions as a carrier of the initial rhetorical message); Narratio–exposition of the material (usually divided into three parts: Initium, Medium and Finis; digressions (Digressio) are typical within the Narratio-section); Propositio–main thesis (exposes and further develops the central thought and essence of the Exordium-Narratio; in music, Propositio is amost always fugal, imitative, often in strong relation to the Confirmatio); Confirmatio–confirmation/proof of the thesis presented in the Propositio (presents a condensation of the material used in the speech as a whole; confirms the argument, also fugal); Confutatio–disputes the central argument of the Propositio (this section is characterised by the effect of sudden, suprising contrast; use of different contrapuntal and melodic devices; unexpected transition to completely new thoughts, or suddenly interrupted speech; Durezze e Ligatura, use of dissonance, suspensions); Peroratio–conclusion (two main functions are to refresh memory, and to arouse the affect unrestrainedly in the audience; most often references back (recapitulations) to the Exordium and Narratio).
In the Praeludium in g (Buxw148) Buxtehude begins with the Exordium in a very drammatic fashion, Stile Drammaticowith solo on the manual. Narratio-Digressio-sections three parts further develops the material of introduction (Initium), followed by a fugal passage (Medium). This section end with Digressio, free improvisatory passage running across the keys (finis). Propositio presents the argument by developing ideas found in the introduction and exposition sections. This section is followed by a very brief Confutatio, with dissonances and suspensions. Confirmatio follows with a second fugue presenting a condensation and reduction of the ideas found in Exordium. The conclusion, Peroratio, is based on the recapitulation of Narratio-section's middle part (Medium) fugal writing.
Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741), 'Il prete rosso', the 'Red Priest', so known because of the color of his hair and eduction as a priest, came to epitomise the Italian violin idiom of the early 18th century. Vivaldi spent most of his professional career in Venice. He was a very profilic composer of concertos, sonatas, operas and church music. Unfortunately most of his operas and church music has been lost. Vivaldi influenced the succeeding generation of composers in Europe, Bach in particular. In the first ever biography of J. S. Bach, published in 1802, Johann Nikolaus Forkel describes the profound influence Vivaldi had on Bach as a composer based on the reports by the two oldest Bach sons Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel: Bach's study of Vivaldi's compositional procedures represented a culmination point in his development of self-guided learning, enabling Bach to "think musically." Bach's compositional system incorporated Vivaldi's process of musical thinking in terms of order, continuity, and proportion, as exemplified in Vivaldi's concertos.
During the earlier part of the 18th century Vivaldi was arguably the most famous composer alive. Despite his wild reputation of breaking musical boundaries, Vivaldi was nevertheless very much a formalist. He developed the ritornello form to its absolute peak in his concerti and captured the imagination of many prominent European composers, among them Johann Sebastian Bach. Vivaldi did not invent the ritornello form, but he regularized its use as a formalistic norm in a solo concerto. The formal scheme of a ritornello consists of one or more ideas in a refrain played by the full ensemble. It established the opening tonality and affirms other tonalities reached in the course of a movement. The solo episodes scored for a solo instrument with a light accompaniment present entirely new material from that in the tutti ritornello. After the solo episode, the tutti ritornello is replaced in a different key. This alteration of tutti and solo occurs several times throughout the movement and is rounded off by a final tutti ritornello in the tonic key, almost identical with the opening ritornello. The ritornello principle is the sturcture for the first and last movements of a three-movement concerto. The slow middle movement employs a ternary form, thus framing the middle seciton with two ritornellos in the tonic key. Since Vivaldi set the first and the last movements of his concertos and sinfonias in the ritornello form and there are c. 450 concertos attributed to Vivaldi, he thus composed c. 900 movements in the ritornello scheme.
In the late 1720s Vivaldi came into contact with the Austrian emperor Charles VI. The emperor was a serious connoisseur; he even directed operatic performances from the harpsichord himself and studied composition with Johann Joseph Fux. Vivaldi dedicated his op. 9, a set of twelve concertos entitled La cetra, "the lyre," to the emperor. The lyre served as a symbol of the love for music of the Habsburgs. This collection had originally been published in Amsterdam in 1727. The copy of the manuscript Vivaldi presented to the emperor had the same title, but not the same material as in the published version. The emperor rewarded the composer handsomely and gave him the title of a knight, a lot of money, as well as a golden chain. The conversations about music between Vivaldi and the emperor lasted for two weeks. A contemporary reflection from this meeting mentions that in two weeks the emperor spoke more with Vivaldi than in two years with his ministers.
Vivaldi's concerto in B-flat Major, Op. 9 No. 9, a double-concerto for two violins, was particularly interesting to transcribe, because two of Bach's three extant Vivaldi-transcriptions for the organ, Concerto in A Minor BWV 593, based on Vivaldi's Concerto in A Minor, Op. 3 No. 8 (RV 522) and Concerto in D Minor BWV 596, based on Vivaldi's Concerto in D Minor, Op. 3 No. 11 (RV 565), both from L'estro armonico (also a collection of twelve concerti Op. 3) published in Amsterdam in 1711, are from a double-concerto original thus providing two excellent examples and models for transcribing a double concerto for organ. A dialogue between the two soloists makes life indeed easier for the transcriber!
To summarize my efforts I hope I have achieved something in the spirit of Bach in my transcriptions, following the best traditions of the earlier trancription and intabulation practices of the past, as best described by Johann Mattheson in his Der Vollkommene Capellmeister (1739):
"Borrowing is a permissible thing, but one must return interest for the thing borrowed; that is one must so arrange and work out the imitations that they acquire a newer and better aspect than the pieces from which they are derived."
Timo Kiiskinen (b. 1960): Timeline-A History of Organ music in one Piece
Timeline is actually pedagogical music. It is a humoristic answer to the ever increasing demands of efficiency and tightening curriculums and limited times for students to study and graduate. When a student learns this one organ piece, it is not necessary to play any other organ repertory. Everything essential of the organ literature has been thus already learnt. A diligent listener may recognize different themes during the course of the piece. The motto of this seven-movement piece is a comment by Frank Zappa: "All the good music has already been written by people with wigs and stuff."
Doctor of Music Timo Kiiskinen is the Professor of Church Music and the Chair of the Church Music Departement at the Sibelius Academy. In addition to his teaching responsibilities Dr. Kiiskinen has performed in very versitile roles as musician including as a conductor, vocal soloist, harpsichordist, pianist, organist and composer. Professor Kiiskinen main emphasis is liturgical music as well as planning and executing the development of artisitic education in church music.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Kalle Toivio is a Finnish-American virtuoso concert organist and pianist living in New York City. He is the winner of the First Prize at the prestigious American Guild of Organists National Competition in Organ Improvisation. The CD-Album of Kalle Toivio Improvisations at St. Ignatius was released by the Pro Organo/Naxos-label in December 2019. Dr. Kalle Toivio has played recitals at Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Church of Saint Ignatius Loyola, Riverside Church, St. Mary the Virgin in New York City, St. Ann & the Holy Trinity Church in Brooklyn, Kennedy Center Millenium Stage in Washington D.C., Newark Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart and Central Lutheran Church in Downtown Minneapolis. Kalle Toivio has toured in Europe, Japan and the United States. He has performed on Television and Radio in Finland, United Kingdom, Belgium and Austria. As a concert pianist Kalle Toivio has also has also played recitals at the Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series in Chicago and at the Carnegie Hall. Dr. Toivio has performed as a soloist with numerous orchestras in Finland and Europe. In the Summer of 2019 Kalle Toivio had a major tour in Finland and Sweden which included recitals at the Turku and Helsinki Cathedrals, the Mänttä Music Festival, Lahti Organ Festival and in Mörrum, Sweden. Kalle Toivio was a featured performer at the AGO OrganFest 2020. Dr. Toivio is the winner of numerous awards and prizes.
Kalle Toivio is the Organist and Director of Music at the Church of Notre Dame in New York City. Dr. Toivio is in the organ faculty of Manhattan School of Music Precollege and the Piano Faculty at the Stamford Music & Arts Academy in Stamford, Connecticut. Kalle Toivio is the Dean of the Finland Chapter of the American Guild of Organists. Besides his versatile career as a soloist and a chamber musician, Dr. Toivio is a producer of cultural events and concerts. During his tenure as the Music Chairman of the Finlandia Foundation New York Chapter, Kalle Toivio produced several New York debut recitals for Finnish artsists. Together with Mr. Leland Hoch, his partner in promoting Finnish music and cultural arts in America, Kalle Toivio produced the first full performance of Rautavaara's 'Vigilia' in the United States, conducted by Kent Tritle at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in November of 2016.
Kalle Toivio has graduated from the Sibelius Academy with Bachelor and Master of Music degrees in Church Music as well as Master of Music degree in Piano Performance. After moving to New York City Dr. Toivio continued his organ studies with the legendary Prof. McNeil Robinson at the Manhattan School of Music, from where he received his Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in Organ Performance and was honored with the Bronson Ragan Award twice, given to an individual who has demonstrated outstanding ability in Organ Performance. Kalle Toivio has continued his organ studies with James David Christie and organ improvisation with David Briggs. Dr. Toivio has continued his piano studies with Nina Svetlanova. Kalle Toivio is married to concert pianist, actress and playwright Viktoriya Papayani.