Playlist: Kaija Saariaho in FMQ

Anssi Karttunen: "When Kaija brought me the sheet music for Petals, it was completely ready. She had fully developed her writing for cello, and there was no need to change anything." Read more here.

Anu Komsi on Saariaho's Finnish-language songs: "The songs serve as ambassadors of the Finnish language, not just of Finnish composition." Read more here.

Juha T. Koskinen: "Esa-Pekka Salonen was conducting the upcoming premiere of her work '…à la fumée' (1990). Back then, enchanted by the new sound world I had just discovered, I could not imagine that in six years’ time, Kaija would become my composition teacher at the Sibelius Academy." Read more here.

Pia Värri: "Kaija has her own unique notes and tone. It’s instantly recognisable. Her music has its own kind of strong expressiveness, harmonies and spectra, which must all be conveyed to the listener. The notes are just a raw copy of a world that is beyond there." Read more here.

Susan McClary: "'Sentimental' is scarcely the adjective that comes to mind with the horrifying subject matter and often brutal sonorities Kaija produces in Adriana Mater or Émilie. Our laws concerning pregnancy are so harsh in part because we fail to acknowledge the very personhood of women." Read more here.