Aphelium Journeys
For String Quartet & Tenor Saxophone
Aphelium Journeys is a bold, poetic voyage through three contemporary chamber works scored for two string quartets and one work for saxophone and string quartet, the album traces a path from elemental contrast, through inner landscapes, to emotional ignition — a series of deeply personal musical journeys.
Works
Icons of Blue, Black & Sun, String Quartet No. 2
I. Blue (6:38)
II. Black (10:06)
III. Sun (5:19)
Valleys of Soliloquy, String Quartet No. 3
I. Murmurs in Shadow (12:16)
II. Folded Light (4:36)
III. The Distant Voice (10:03)
IV. Blazing Flames, for Saxophone and String Quartet (27:21)
Aphelium Journeys
The trilogy explores extremes of color, gesture, and inner resonance. The kinetic oriented music is bold yet intimate — at times volatile, at times silent — always reaching toward a voice refined by distance.
Aphelium — the point in an orbit farthest from the sun — becomes a metaphor for creative distance and transformation: the outer edge where clarity sharpens, where music is forged through space, intensity, and return.
Selected Audio
About the Project
Icons of Blue, Black & Sun - String Quartet No. 2
A work of raw contrasts and elemental forces, Blue, Black & Sun explores the volatile terrain between light and darkness, stillness and eruption. The colors in the title represent states of being — emotional weather systems shifting between turbulence and illumination. The music carves sound out of wind, stone, and fire The music speaks in bold shapes and changing textures, as if carving sound out of wind, stone, and fire — an opening gesture of unresolved intensity. It is the trilogy’s opening force: unresolved, searching, and alive with energy.
Movements:
I. Blue
Stillness before motion. Cool introspection, suspended thought. “Blue” evokes a reflective inner space — calm but alert, like breath held under shifting skies.
II. Black
The gravitational center. A dense, volatile core of the quartet. “Black” is not emptiness, but pressure — implosive energy, weight, and resistance.
III. Sun
Ignition and release. “Sun” breaks open the structure with radiant force — not as resolution, but emergence. A blaze through and beyond form.
Valleys of Soliloquy - String Quartet No. 3
The emotional core of the trilogy, Valleys of Soliloquy draws us inward. A quiet exploration of solitude and reflection, the three movements move from tentative murmurs to resonant release. Like a soliloquy spoken without words, the piece listens deeply — to echoes of memory and visions of becoming.
Where the outer works move between elemental contrasts and cosmic reach, this central quartet draws the listener into a more intimate terrain: the quiet valleys of the self, where solitary thoughts echo and gradually ripen.
Structured in three movements — Murmurs in Shadow, Folded Light, and The Distant Voice — the music travels through phases of subtle tension, emotional emergence, and resonant release. Like a soliloquy spoken not with words but with breath and bow, it invites us to listen inwardly, where echoes of the past and visions of becoming converge.
This is not music of declaration, but of depth and presence — a ripening in stillness, shaped by time, space, and the evolving voice of the composer.
Movements:
I. Murmurs in Shadow(A tentative beginning, quiet introspection)
II Folded Light (Contrasting textures — inward and outward motion)
III. The Distant Voice (A resonant final gesture — echoes through space/time)
Blazing Flames - for Tenor Saxophone and String Quartet
The trilogy’s culmination — the moment of ignition. Scored for saxophone and string quartet, the work explores the union of saxophone´s expressiveness and string resonance, drawing on the full dynamic and emotional spectrum between the instruments.
At its heart, Blazing Flames is also a love story — not sentimental or ornamental, but fierce, vulnerable, and transformative. The music traces the arc of emotional surrender: from inner tension to radiant openness. It is love as a force of clarity and combustion — one that burns away surface and reveals essence.
Urgent, corporeal, and elemental, the piece celebrates intensity not as chaos, but as focused energy, refined through introspection and released in full force. This is not destruction, but burning as transformation — the fire of voice, the arrival of light.
“These are not linear stories, but elliptical paths — each one reaching outward before circling back to something essential.”
-Esa PIetilä
Credits:
Esa Pietilä, Tenor Saxophone & compositions
Skatta String Quartet:
Erkki Lasonpalo, 1st violin ( 2nd violin on Blazing Flames)
Aleksi Kotila, 2nd violin (1st violin on Blazing Flames)
Max Savikangas, viola
Artturi Aalto, violoncello
Recorded at Church of St. Lawrence, Vantaa, Finland, June 4.–6.2025
Record engineer: Enno Mäemets
Recording producer: Viive Mäemets
Mixed and mastered by Enno Mäemets at Editroom
Produced by Esa Pietilä
cover design ©Sanna Vauhkonen
ALBA Records, ABCD 490