>From the Finnish Music Information Centre:

   "For Aho, a composition is a spiritual process:  he himself has used
   the term 'abstract plot' to describe the form of his works.  The form
   focuses on powerful, often protracted climaxes, which take on the
   role of the decisive battle in a musical drama."

   "Aho delights in juxtaposing sharply contrasted moods, references
   to and quotations from other music, irony and parody.  He likes to
   produce stylized versions of established genres, such as the waltz,
   the march or even the fanfare.  Cultivating the 'aesthetics of the
   impure', he is a modern-day kindred spirit of Mahler."

The source quoted above provides sketches of each of his symphonies and
several chamber pieces.  I don't know his music personally, and he hasn't
written for voice.

Anne
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