A review for my CD “Nordic Visions – Finnish Piano Music” (ALM Records, 2025) was published in the magazine “Kompositio” by Finnish Composers’ Society in November 2025. I am grateful to Auli Särkiö-Pitkänen for this wonderful text.
Japanese pianist Eriko Takahashi and composer Ari Romppanen are an example of a collaboration in which the performer enables the composer’s intentions to be realized, and the composer, in turn, is inspired by the performer’s qualities.
The recital disc, which testifies to the cultural similarity between Finland and Japan, includes a well-selected historical repertoire (Kokkonen, Madetoja, Palmgren), as well as a piece inspired by a painting by Joan Miró by Kai Nieminen, and two piano works by Romppanen. The larger of them, Sandbox of Almach (2020), is one of the many pieces Romppanen has composed for Takahashi.
Takahashi’s translucent and dedicated playing is an ideal angle for Romppanen’s complex, multi-layered music bigger than human.
The pianist enjoys the glassy, dripping tones and never beats, allowing the textures like constellations to shine through. Sandbox of Almach is a kind of sonata, in which the parts referring to the different types of children’s play give the impression of a rugged but playful explanation of the world, of the universe as organized chaos.
Text: Auli Särkiö-Pitkänen
(English translation: Ari Romppanen)[“Kompositio” 2/2025 (11/2025) by Composers’ Society, page 59.]
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