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A Finnish Star Probes the Starry Cosmos New York
Rose Theater, Lincoln Center
02/20/2025 -
Jyrki Linjama: Prélude oublié (World Premiere)
Alexander Scriabin: Piano Sonatas No. 6, Op. 62, & no. 7, Op. 64
Franz Liszt: Années de pèlerinage (Deuxième Année: Italie), S. 161: 7. “Après une lecture du Dante: Fantasia quasi Sonata”
Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 14 “Quasi una fantasia”, Op. 27, No. 1
Olivier Messiaen: Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant‑Jésus: XV. “Le Baiser de l’Enfant‑Jésus”
Juho Pohjonen (Pianist) 
J. Pohjonen (© Caroline Bittencourt)
“Everywhere is here. Every when is now.”
Dante Alighieri
“My sole ambition as a composer is to hurl my javelin into the infinite space of the future.”
Franz Liszt
It seems like a millennium, we had only three two nights between the duo of Wang and Olafsson and the recital last night of Juho Pohjonen for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Square.
The former was a dazzling display of the esoteric and the familiar, a partnership which this writer called sheer joy.
The Finnish pianist Juho Pohjonen gave a different kind of joy. He is a splendid technician, of course. Yet his program offered the opposite of ebullience. These four works were variations on free‑wheeling fantasies, not formal structures. And each fantasy could have reflected on Dante’s mythical travels.
The opening world premiere of Helsinki composer Jyrki Linjama’s Prélude oublié was like a meditation, including a second half based on Bach’s “Et incarnatus est” from the B Minor Mass. Two Scriabin sonatas could have come from Inferno, while the Messiaen excerpt was (obviously) a simulacrum of Dante’s Paradiso.
Tying them together was Franz Liszt’s pure emotional feeling “After hearing a lecture on Dante”. (And knowing Liszt, he had probably studied the original, in Italian.) Beethoven’s Sonata was the only work where we were given Free Choice. More later.
The artist, thankfully, did not handle the music with aplomb. He played with utter sensitivity. The whirligig measures of the Scriabin were played somehow with urgency and clarity. The final work, from Messiaen’s Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant‑Jésus (not to be confused with “Give My Regards to Broadway”) was like a final “Amen” to music which skirted the pantheistic cosmos.
J. Linjama (© Saara Vuorjoki)
Juho Pohjonen’s countryman, composer Jyrki Linjama, was present to hear the world premiere of his work. I didn’t know his music, but the program gave his religious philosophy in Nicky Swett’s comprehensive program notes: “I’m not able to divide music into spiritual and secular...If the music is alive, it also breathes.”
His Forgotten Prelude was breathing from the first notes, The composer’s credo (like the Dante quote above) states “Music should defy time and stretch into eternity.” And from the first rolling notes to the Bach quote took over the whole piece. Three nights ago, the Berg Violin Concerto also quoted Bach for a few seconds. Mr. Linjama allowed it to control the full engaging piece.
And this led to the first of two Scriabin sonatas, where the artist took two fantasias, and frequently gave them cohesion.
Liszt’s work, one of the two based on Dante, was superficially sheer poetry, enjoyable for an emotional free‑wheeling fantasy. Few can subdue the attractive vulgarity, and Mr. Pohjonen made no effort to do so. A barrage of chromatic octaves, pounding crescendos, reiterated rhythms...
Whew! One has to wonder what kind of “lecture” Liszt heard. Somewhere he inserted poetry, and thankfully this was accentuated by he pianist.
The finale was one section from Messiaen, and while one needs the entire hour‑plus piano work, the pianist showed his virtuosity.
How, then, did Beethoven’s early fantasia (originally paired with the “Moonlight”) fit in? Where the other works showed their prayerful colors from the start, we could make our own decisions for the composer’s startling changes. Euphoria changes into staccato fury, innocence becones anger in that opening movement.
Yet Mr. Pohjonen allowed us to forget that with an Adagio which could rival Beethoven’s later string quartets. This was played with a lightness, a whispering loveliness. That finale? Beethoven again showing that anger and humor came from the same sources in his mind.
Never mind the liturgical, forget the prayerful affirmations of the other works last night. This was Beethoven the Earthling, And pianist Pohjonen made that transition with roaring satisfaction.
Harry Rolnick
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