“My feeling is that 20th-century music did not end until January 2016, when Pierre Boulez died.” This remark, made by Research Professor Mieko Kanno at a recent get-together, was staggering: we have entered a new era in contemporary music! Composing is no longer dogmatic. There are no schools anymore. Entropy has engulfed contemporary art music.
Boulez was not the only one holding us back in the previous millennium. The somewhat earlier departures of Dutilleux, Stockhausen, Ligeti, Berio, Henze, and Xenakis from the ranks of the living spelled the end of an entire era. The next to leave us will be the Minimalist generation.
Professor Kanno – an undisputed expert on contemporary music – presented another startling observation: now that we are in a new era, has the professional competence of many still-living, still-working composers suddenly become outdated? This was not meant literally, as an exhortation for all ageing post-Serialist, neo-Romantic, or spectral composers to throw in the towel, but it did make me wonder: can a composer’s skills become outdated – and from whose perspective?
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It is true that the people now entering the field of art music do so with a vastly different toolkit than was the case just a couple of decades ago. The newest music of our time draws on extended instrumental techniques, object music, audiovisual elements, cross-sectoral projects, artificial intelligence, and multi-sensory concepts. Microinterval harmonies have entered the mainstream. No wonder a middle-aged composer may panic: what do I do if I do not want to go in that direction or do not know how?
I entered the profession in the 1990s, and naturally, my earliest works owe a lot to the ideals of the latter part of the last century. However, like all composers, I am a subject. I create my art out of my own inner compulsion. This does not mean standing still, of course: my music is always evolving. I personally felt I left an era behind about ten years ago with Zen for soprano and instrument quartet.
After the premiere of that work, a critic wrote that it had been the most “traditional” piece in the concert. All the works performed had been written in the previous few years and stylistically definitely fell within what we think of as contemporary music. But on what basis should any piece of music written now be described as “more traditional” than another?
Bernd Alois Zimmermann introduced the concept of the “sphericality of time,” placing us, in the present moment, at the center of the sphere. Behind us is the past, ahead is the part of the future we can see, and around us is what is happening right now. This is how he justified blending very old music with the avant-garde of his day and including popular and jazz music. In my Finlandia Prize-winning book Miksi nykymusiikki on niin vaikeaa [Why modern music is so difficult] (Atena 2021), I take Zimmermann’s concept further, applying it to the evolution of musical styles.
I find myself repeatedly contemplating whether my professional competence is outdated. While it serves my goals well, I feel a strong need to reinvent myself with each new piece.
Musical evolution is not linear. Musical styles do not change all at once, and music does not develop – let alone ‘progress’ – in any single direction. Musical evolution is spherical; we are living in a continuous Big Bang that is endlessly expanding our musical universe in all directions. That is why it is possible to write new music using 20th-century composition techniques. All musical styles conform to their respective traditions and evolve according to their own rules. Even the most cutting-edge avant-garde contributes to the tradition of the avant-garde. There is no such thing as completely new and original music. We are in a forever-expanding sphere.
I find myself repeatedly contemplating whether my professional competence is outdated. While it serves my goals well, I feel a strong need to reinvent myself with each new piece. This forces me to augment my professional competence – whether through technology like electronics or by adding microtonality to my previous harmonic language.
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Music is a visual art for me. I have synaesthesia: I ‘hear’ sonorous properties in visual art, particularly abstract art. Colours and textures translate into tonal colours, and shapes and figures become rhythms and harmonic movements. When I plan a new work, my mind is filled with images that do not go away until I write the actual notes on the page.
In recent years, movement has become an important element. I sense the movement of crowds as musical shapes; large groups of moving individuals form abstract art of a kind. This is embodied in my string octet Swarm, inspired by schools of fish, swarms of cicadas, and murmurations of starlings moving in unison.
Why do I write music? Why not poetry, painting, or dance? Perhaps because music is the most intimate and enigmatic of the arts. Music cannot be explained without ceasing to be art. It cannot be ‘understood’; it is a bodily experience. No one can have a ‘wrong’ understanding of music – every experience is unique and tells a personal story that evolves over time.
More columns by Finnish composers and music makers: On my music and beyond.
Translation: Jaakko Mäntyjärvi
Featured photo: Stella Reismaa
