FMQ - composer Articles

On my music and beyond: Composing as a means of survival

In this deeply personal column, Markku Klami reflects on how music became his survival strategy, why composing remains his greatest calling, and how culture can give us a reason to live. “Art fosters hope, opens up new perspectives and brings us together”, writes Klami.

Markku Klami

February 7, 2025

Columns

Composers and colleagues: Mikko Heiniö

In this column series, composers working in Finland ask each other questions that can be on just about anything: their work, their technique, their philosophy or their career. In this instalment, Mikko Heiniö responds to a question from Aulis Sallinen. Next time, Mikko Heiniö will present a question to a composer of his choice.

Mikko Heiniö, Aulis Sallinen

November 1, 2024

Columns

Composers and colleagues: Aulis Sallinen

In this new column, composers working in Finland ask each other questions that can be on just about anything: their work, their technique, their philosophy or their career. In this inaugural column, Aulis Sallinen responds to a question from Antti Auvinen, retiring chair of the Society of Finnish Composers. Next time, Aulis Sallinen will present a question to a composer of his choice.

Aulis Sallinen

May 31, 2024

Columns

On my music and beyond: Creating connections and togetherness through music

“In a time of disinformation warfare and polarisation, where people gain power and money by spreading fear and hate and by polarising people against each other, what we need the most is love and a sense of connection,” writes composer Cecilia Damström in her column.

Cecilia Damström

April 19, 2024

Columns

On my music and beyond: How do you win composition competitions?

On the date of publication of this column, Tomi Räisänen’s organ concerto Pulmo, which was awarded the grand prize in the Kaija Saariaho Organ Composition Competition, is being premiered on the new organ at the Music Centre in Helsinki. “As a composer, it is good for you to aim to improve and challenge yourself”, writes Räisänen.

Tomi Räisänen

February 2, 2024

Features

The symphonist who broke the glass ceiling – Helvi Leiviskä 120th anniversary at the Kokonainen festival

Helvi Leiviskä wrote monumentally culminating symphonies and influenced numerous Finnish composers. As a theosophist, she wanted her music to reflect her world view and believed in the power of music. Thanks to the efforts of musicians and scholars, she is now attaining the place she deserves in the repertoire of Finnish orchestras, 120 years after her birth.

Auli Särkiö-Pitkänen

January 27, 2023

Columns

On my music and beyond: On the search for enjoyable contemporary music

"I would be delighted if an audience member said: 'Those ten minutes passed so quickly' after hearing my music", writes Mioko Yokoyama.

Mioko Yokoyama

November 23, 2022

Features

“Known to her friends as Kaija”: A musical journey with trusted interpreters

Over the decades, numerous musicians and ensembles around the world have performed the music of Kaija Saariaho. Without long-term relationships with trusted interpreters, the Finnish composer’s music would have travelled quite a different path.

Anu Jormalainen

October 27, 2022

Reviews

Concertante cordial

"Kalevi Aho has been one of the major concertogenists, if I may coin that word, composing no fewer than 37 since 1981."

Martin Anderson

November 30, 2021

Features

As the canon turns – reflections on the centenary of Joonas Kokkonen

Joonas Kokkonen began his life in a small town in the 1920s and went on to become one of Finland’s most celebrated and internationally most successful composers. Today, his music is rarely performed in concert.

Pekka Hako

November 4, 2021

Columns

How composers earn their crust in Finland

“From the viewpoint of direct artist funding, art politics since the 1990s recession have failed. The sector’s growth has not been matched by increased public funding.” Composer Pasi Lyytikäinen reflects on the progress and future views of composers’ livelihood in Finland.

Pasi Lyytikäinen

September 30, 2021

Columns

On my music and beyond: The greatest achievement of humanity is art

“Composing is for me largely a matter of random meandering, and writing down the notes is only the tip of the iceberg in my process. My composing does not adapt to office hours, does not progress in a linear fashion and is not easily predictable; instead, it is variable and fragmented, and largely a complete mystery to me,” writes composer Sauli Zinovjev. This column is part of the series where composers and musicians write about their music.

Sauli Zinovjev

September 16, 2021

Reviews

Zinovjev knows how to make electroacoustics smooth and rough

"Sauli Zinovjev has an excellent command of collaboration with musicians and an advanced understanding of sound and of drama."

Kare Eskola

May 6, 2021

Features

Composer Maija Hynninen found courage in California

Composer Maija Hynninen works extensively with new technology, but this does not diminish the importance of the traditional craft of a composer, quite the opposite. A composer’s work is about listening and processing, and that takes time, she says. For Hynninen, every work is a new process of exploration. She discovered a new kind of courage while studying in California.

Auli Särkiö-Pitkänen

March 11, 2021

Columns

On my music and beyond: Advocating for the human touch

"With my works and with the way I write them, I advocate for the human touch in our increasingly cold and technological world," writes composer Kalevi Aho. This column is part of the series where composers and other music makers write about their music.

Kalevi Aho

January 15, 2021

Features

Finland is a paradise for composers - Today there are multiple ways to make your mark

The professional profile and operating environment of Finnish composers of classical music have become increasingly international at a rapid rate in the past three decades. Back in the day, few composers spent extensive periods of time abroad, and any trips they did take were mainly for study or for inspiration and did not necessarily involve immersion in the local music scene. This started to change in the 1990s, as the Finnish music industry began to integrate into the international music industry.

Pekka Hako

October 2, 2020

Columns

On my music and beyond: Repository of Hope

“Nature exposes the artifice of art, the craftedness of it, the smallness and egotism of it before the vastness of creation. To invoke nature is to admit the wild, the unplanned, into art,” writes composer Matthew Whittall. This column is part of the series, where composers and other music makers write about their music.

Matthew Whittall

April 8, 2020

Features

Composers in collaboration

Collaborative composing is not common among Finnish composers of art music, and the approach raises several critical questions. Is it even possible to share musical creation and innovation with another person? Does group work inevitably lead to bland or incoherent compromises, or can it produce art of a high quality? Is the incentive for engaging in this that it is trendy or that commissioners want it that way, or do composers have other reasons for co-authoring works? Despite the numerous reservations, some composers have found collaboration to be an enriching aspect of writing music.

Merja Hottinen

March 26, 2020

Features

Tampere Biennale 2020 – Human being speaks to human being

The Tampere Biennale 2020, a contemporary music festival scheduled for April, has been cancelled to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. As a substituting programme, the Biennale and the Finnish Broadcasting Company Yle will organise a radio festival titled Tampere Biennale 2.0. Composer Jennah Vainio, the artistic director of the Tampere Biennale, spoke to FMQ about the scheduled programme of the event 2020 and about her work as a composer.

Auli Särkiö-Pitkänen

March 12, 2020

Reviews

Spacious sound worlds

"Maija Hynninen creates spacious, original sound worlds and narratives that leave room for the listeners’ imagination."

Anna Pulkkis

December 12, 2019

Features

A celebration of historical Finnish women who wrote music, Part 3: Laura Netzel

Composer Laura Netzel (1839–1927) was celebrated in her lifetime as a notable musician and philanthropist. Born in Savo in eastern Finland, she spent her life in Stockholm, where she came to be known as a prolific composer and an active member of various charities.

Nuppu Koivisto-Kaasik

August 9, 2019

Features

Jaakko Mäntyjärvi is a composer thoroughly familiar with his instrument – the choir

His music is constantly being performed abroad. In Finland, he is known as a composer of choral music and an active singer. Regular readers of FMQ will recognise him as one of our house translators. Jaakko Mäntyjärvi is something of a musical outlier.

Tove Djupsjöbacka

June 4, 2019

Features

A quest for new perspectives – the possible worlds of composer Mikko Heiniö

The third symphony by Mikko Heiniö is premiered in Turku in May 18. While celebrating his 70th birthday, it nevertheless looks to the future. His work as a composer continues, and he has just finished writing a new opera, his fourth.

Kimmo Korhonen

May 17, 2018

Features

The many shades of noise

“Somehow there has to be something new, and somehow the composer has to challenge himself. But employing completely new means of expression or playing around with the concept of art are not in themselves necessary for creating meaningful art.” So says composer Lauri Kilpiö, whose new piano concerto Shades of Light traces a broad arc from tradition to the present day, acknowledging both Beethoven and the aesthetics of noise.

Anna Pulkkis

November 2, 2017

Features

Ernst Mielck - Thrice homeless

Ernst Mielck, who died at the age of only 21, is regarded as one of the most dazzling prodigies in the history of Finnish music. He was a curious figure, an outsider who nevertheless managed to make waves before his untimely death.

Kimmo Korhonen

July 9, 2012

Features

Järnefelt in a Wagnerian light

Armas Järnefelt is today principally known for two lovely miniatures: Preludi and Berceuse. Yet he was the composer of several extensive works who introduced a new, Wagnerian voice into Finnish music.

Kimmo Korhonen

May 3, 2010

Features

Sermilä “the All-rounder”

It is improvisatory music, such as jazz, that Jarmo Sermilä plays best on the trumpet and flugelhorn, and his status and focus as a musician is also probably slightly unconventional compared with the normal art music enthusiast.

Anu Karlson

January 3, 2001

Features

Erkki Melartin - a symphonic composer of international stature?

It is finally time for Erkki Melartin to emerge from “the shadow of Sibelius”, nearly 63 years after his death. Is Melartin a symphonic composer of international stature or merely one of those “harlots and their pimps”, as Gustav Mahler termed the “national geniuses” in music?

Osmo Tapio Räihälä

January 3, 2000

Features

Esa-Pekka Salonen, the composer behind the conductor

"It may sound a bit crazy, but I actually think of myself more as a composer than a conductor. It just so happens that the conducting side has outweighed the composing," says Esa-Pekka Salonen in 1998.

Antti Häyrynen

January 9, 1998

Features

The quest for identity – Kaija Saariaho spends a year in Finland

Kaija Saariaho, who settled in France in the early 1980s, spent the 1997- 98 academic year as visiting composition professor at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland. The FMQ asked her how she felt at the end of her stay.

Anni Heino

January 9, 1998

Features

Oskar Merikanto, the composer who captured the hearts of the people

When the biography of Oskar Merikanto was published in 1950, it was subtitled “A household name in Finland”. And although romanticising biographies were all the vogue at the time, the title nevertheless says much about the importance of Merikanto in moulding Finnish musical taste. In the early decades of the 20th century Oskar Merikanto, his performances and music, influenced the taste of the ordinary Finn more, even, than Sibelius.

Pekka Hako

February 4, 1993

Features

“Ich habe zu reden. Ich hebe die Hände”

Although still only 28, Esa-Pekka Salonen probably needs little introduction for anyone with even a moderate interest in classical music, since he has already gained what is known in the jargon of concert programmes as “an international reputation” for his conducting work. In this article, however, we take a look at the still small, but not insignificant output of Salonen the composer. When Esa-Pekka Salonen looks in the mirror, does he see a conductor or a composer looking back at him?

Lauri Otonkoski

January 8, 1985

Features

Tauno Marttinen - Composer of intuition and inspiration

"Tauno Marttinen's (1912-2008) image as a composer is a colourful one. His work has relied on instinct and inspiration and is rooted in mysticism. For the 'shaman of Hämeenlinna', as he has become known, music and composition are a form of meditation, a key to the mysteries of the universe," writes Juha Torvinen in his article from 2003.

Juha Torvinen

January 8, 1985

Features

The universe within us – focus on the composer Jukka Tiensuu

Jukka Tiensuu – composer, harpsichordist, pianist and musician: “I feel equally at home with music of all periods, and with different musical genres. If you want to get to the very essence of music, you cannot stick to just one type of music only. I see music as something eternal yet closely rooted in its own era and environment. So studying, say, Renaissance or Baroque dance steps, architecture or cultural modes has been just as relevant to myö career as the use of a computer, an ‘autonomous colleague’, for examining and determining the micro-organisms of sound or composing itself.”

Risto Nieminen

January 8, 1985

Features

Kalevi Aho: a composer of moods

"Art should be able to stir us, to wake us from our dreaming and our torpor, so that we should be forced to take a stand on the work and explain to ourselves what it means. If a composition is capable of this, then it has at the same time been able to activate the listener both emotionally and intellectually."

Kimmo Korhonen

January 8, 1985

Features

From lament to success story: the Society of Finnish Composers at 50

Finnish composers got together to form a society immediately after the war, in 1945. The following is a resume of the history of the first half decade of the Society of Finnish Composers, written in 1995 by Erkki Salmenhaara (1941–2002), at the time Associate Professor of Music at the University of Helsinki.

Erkki Salmenhaara

January 8, 1985

Features

“The calculation of prosesses is a source of inspiration”

Magnus Lindberg, 28, is among the most internationally successful of young Finnish composers. This year his orchestral work KRAFT took 1st prize in the Unesco International Rostrum of Composers in Paris. Magnus Lindberg's composing muse combines two farces: on the one hand there is a need far the rational arrangement of things, the theoretician at work, and on the other we have the irrational free imagination of the musician. Fused together they generate some of the most poweiful music heard on these shores far quite a while.

Risto Nieminen

January 8, 1985