A brief outline of the Finnish chamber music

by Kimmo Korhonen & Fimic :: 2002

The early days of Finnish chamber music
National Romanticism and traditional genres of chamber music
The first spurt of Modernism
Post-war styles
Stylistic plurality
Free-tonality and Modernism side by side
Ears open! and the international boom
The expanding range of styles and influences in the 1990s
The new millennium is here - long live freedom!

In Focus: Kaija Saariaho and Magnus Lindberg
In Focus: Finnish chamber music flourishes in summer


The early days of Finnish chamber music

The first flourish of Finnish music occurred in Turku in the late 18th century. Turku was then the capital of Finland, and its musical life attained a degree of consolidation with the founding of the Turku Musical Society in 1790. The first great Finnish master of chamber music, Bernhard Henrik Crusell (1775-1838) occupied middle ground between Classicism and Romanticism. The principal works of his woodwind-oriented chamber music output are the three Clarinet Quartets (published c. 1811-1823), which are less demanding than his virtuoso-style concertos, being written mainly for skilled amateurs to play at home.

Of Finnish composers preceding Crusell, we might mention Erik Tulindberg (1761-1814) and Thomas Byström (1772-1839). Tulindberg wrote his six String Quartets, obviously influenced by Haydn, probably in the late 1780s, while Byström's principal works, the three Violin Sonatas (c. 1797), are akin to early Beethoven, although we must assume that Byström was not yet familiar with Beethoven's music at the time.

The transition to Romanticism took place very slowly in Finland. The development of musical life was also difficult, partly due to political instability (Finland was taken over from Sweden by Russia in 1809 and became an autonomous Grand Duchy in the Russian Empire). On the other hand, many composers - Byström and Crusell among them - lived and worked abroad. Very little chamber music was written in the 19th century, and scarcely any extensive works.


National Romanticism and traditional genres of chamber music

An unprecedented golden age in Finnish art emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The national awakening and the growing aspirations towards independence found a manifestation in the arts in a strong brand of National Romanticism. The national epic, the Kalevala, and other Finnish subjects were highly visible in orchestra, vocal and piano music. In chamber music, by contrast, composers worked with traditional genres, partly because they typically wrote chamber music in their youth, while still studying.

Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) wrote a considerable body of chamber music as a young man, including the String Quartet in A minor (1889) and two other String Quartets, two String Trios, two Violin Sonatas, five Piano Trios, two Piano Quartets, a Piano Quintet and several smaller works. Later in his career, he only wrote one significant extensive chamber music work, the string quartet Voces intimae (1909).

Ernst Mielck (1877-1899), who died at an early age, showed a vibrant High Romantic idiom and a confident handling of extensive structures in his String Quartet (1895) and String Quintet (1897).

Erkki Melartin (1875-1937) also began writing chamber music at about the same time. He wrote four String Quartets between 1896 and 1910; of these, the Second (1900) is the most important. It reflects the ideals of Central European High Romanticism. His stylistically most interesting chamber music work, the String Trio, probably written in the early 1920s, contains more advanced elements bordering on Modernism.

Sibelius, Mielck and Melartin wrote their best chamber music for various string ensembles. In the next generation, composers were more interested in combining piano with strings. The most important representatives of the genre from the turn of the 20th century are the substantial Brahmsian Piano Quintet (1906) of Erik Furuhjelm (1883-1964), the florid Violin Sonata (1907) and Piano Trio (1908) of Toivo Kuula (1883-1918), and the Piano Trio (1909) of Leevi Madetoja.


The first spurt of Modernism

Only shortly after Finland became independent (1917), the first group of Modernists in Finnish art emerged in the 1920s. Chamber music remained somewhat distant to Modernist composers; only Aarre Merikanto (1893-1958) wrote chamber music of any substance. Väinö Raitio (1891-1945) also wrote an interesting Piano Quintet (1921).

Aarre Merikanto's Expressionistically tinted Concerto for violin, clarinet, horn and string sextet (1924) is one of the most frequently performed Finnish chamber music works of any kind. It is usually known as the Schott Concerto, because it received shared first prize in the composition competition organized by B Schott's Söhne publishers in 1925. Merikanto's chamber music output also includes the powerful and almost orchestral Nonet (1926) and the String Sextet (1932), which the composer partly destroyed.

However, this early Modernist phase was only a footnote to the mainstream National Romanticism. In the 1930s, the stylistic environment turned back towards tradition, and this is evident in the chamber music of the period too. Works from this time are characterized by a cordial synthesis of Neo-Classicism and National Romanticism. Although numerous extensive chamber music works were written at this time, only few of them have survived the test of time.


Post-war styles

Finnish music changed completely after the Second World War. The pre-war Romantic traditionalism gradually vanished as Neo-Classicism and later dodecaphony and newer Modernist trends began to emerge from the late 1940s onward.
Neo-Classicism is more evident in orchestral works than in chamber music. The most significant chamber music output among those who began their careers in Neo-Classicism was written by Joonas Kokkonen (1921-1996), and his Neo-Classical early period in the early 1950s is often called his 'chamber music period'. The most significant work from this period is the Piano Quintet (1953). Einojuhani Rautavaara (1928-) also initially wrote in a similar Neo-Classical vein. Both, however, soon turned to dodecaphony.

Dodecaphony became the mainstream in Finnish music for about a decade from the mid-1950s. The new era was ushered in by Three Fantasies (1954) for clarinet and piano by Erik Bergman (1911-). For some reason, the string quartet proved to be a popular genre among dodecaphonic composers, as witness Kokkonen's First (1959) and Second (1966) String Quartet, Rautavaara's Second String Quartet (1958) and the Four Bagatelles (1962) and First String Quartet (1965) of Usko Meriläinen (1930-2004).

Towards the end of the dodecaphonic era, a new Modernist trend emerged in the 1960s. This trend manifested itself in two ways: in a dodecaphony-based brand of Modernism pursued by Meriläinen and Paavo Heininen (1938-) on one hand, and in a freer and more fantasy-like approach such as that of Erkki Salmenhaara (1941-2002). Chamber music from this period is characterized by unusual instrument combinations changing from one work to the next, providing flexibility in the search for new tonal colour, an important point for Modernists.


Stylistic plurality

The dominance of dodecaphony waned in the mid-1960s, and many Modernist composers turned toward a more traditional style. The most abrupt turn was made by Salmenhaara, whose later works are written in a curious neo-tonal idiom. Tauno Marttinen (1912-), Leonid Bashmakov (1927-) and Aulis Sallinen (1935-) discovered their own voice around this time, having experimented with and discarded dodecaphony. Sallinen's String Quartets form the backbone of his chamber music output. Einar Englund (1916-1999) continued his career in the Neo-Classical style outlined by his early works. He began writing chamber music in the late 1970s, producing an extensive output including Sonatas, a Piano Trio, a String Quartet and a Wind Quintet.

Modernism remained the foundation of the output of Bergman, Meriläinen and Heininen. The two latter continued writing chamber music along with other genres, and Meriläinen in particular found his perhaps most important and idiomatic form of expression in chamber music. Bergman, on the other hand, did not venture into chamber music until the late 1970s; since then, he has experimented actively with widely varying ensembles.


Free-tonality and Modernism side by side

The musical environment of the 1960s was characterized by the co-existence of different stylistic aspirations. Free-tonality was the flavour of the day, but there were other kinds of modern elements in play. This was reflected in the music of those composers who emerged in the 1970s. Those composers who sought to combine different stylistic ingredients, even within a single work (such as Rautavaara) perhaps reflected the spirit of the times best.

Such composers include Pehr Henrik Nordgren (1944-) and Kalevi Aho (1949-), both of whom have written a lot of chamber music. Nordgren has written eight String Quartets, and Aho has written not only three String Quartets but a series of virtuoso-style Quintets for various wind instruments with string quartet. The most extensive series of Quartets is that of Leif Segerstam (1944-), who by the year 2000 had written 29 String Quartets. Mikko Heiniö (1948-) experimented with both free-tonal and Modernist elements in his early chamber music works, but went on to develop an expressive pluralist style. Pekka Kostiainen (1944-) wrote the most substantial part of his chamber music output in the 1970s.

The free-tonal composers who emerged in the late 1970s or later came up against a slightly different situation. In the 1980s, a new wave of Modernism rose to the fore, overshadowing other styles. As a result, many free-tonal composers confined themselves to small-scale chamber music, often with a practical application. Nevertheless, such composers as Harri Wessman (1949-), Pekka Jalkanen (1945-), Atso Almila (1953-), Lars Karlsson (1953-), Jukka Linkola (1955-) and Timo-Juhani Kyllönen (1955-) have written extensive chamber music works, including several representing traditional genres (Sonatas, Trios, Quartets, etc.).

Among the Modernists who made their debut at the turn of the 1970s, Jarmo Sermilä (1939-) and Erkki Jokinen (1941-) focused particularly on chamber music. Herman Rechberger (1947-) and Jukka Tiensuu (1948-) are also important chamber music composers. All these composers have written works for highly varied ensembles that differ from one work to the next, allowing for experimentation with colour and texture. However, the cornerstone of Jokinen's output is his String Quartet. In addition to unusual instrumentations, the Modernist chamber music of this time is characterized by new and unconventional ways of playing instruments; Rechberger is the most important composer in this approach.

With the new wave of Modernism, the earlier Modernists such as Erik Bergman, Usko Meriläinen and Paavo Heininen came into the limelight, and their influence on younger composers has been huge.


Ears open! and the international boom

The boom of Finnish Modernism, which continues to this day, began in the 1980s. As proof of this, we might cite the list of Finnish composers who have won the composers' Rostrum in Paris: the first of these was Jouni Kaipainen (1956-) with Trois morceaux de l'aube in 1981, while the most recent is Uljas Pulkkis (1975-) in 2001. Over twenty years, there have been thirteen Finnish works in the winner and recommendation lists; five of these works are instrumental chamber music.

It might be an exaggeration to heap the glory for all this upon a single group, but it is undisputed that the Korvat auki! (Ears open!) society, founded in 1977, has been of crucial importance in conveying international Modernism to Finland. The enthusiasm of the young and active core group reflected the attitudes of the earliest Finnish Modernists: the aim was to detach oneself from parochial nationalism and to seek influences in the latest European trends.

Of the pioneer members of the Korvat auki! group, particularly Eero Hämeenniemi (1951-), Kaija Saariaho (1952-), Jouni Kaipainen and Magnus Lindberg (1958-) have written chamber music. Hämeenniemi and Kaipainen have extensive and abstract genres such as Sonatas, Trios and Quartets in their output. Saariaho and Lindberg, on the other hand, prefer descriptive titles. Perhaps the most significant shared feature among the Korvat auki! composers of chamber music is that for all of them chamber music is an organic and valuable strand in their output, not just a youthful phase.

The ideals of the Korvat auki! society trickled down to those composers who belonged to the same generation but were never members of the society or its vanguard. Kimmo Hakola (1958-) wrote no fewer than two Rostrum winners in the 1980s. The String Quartet [no. 1] (1986) is an intensive and dramaturgically confident work, while Capriole (1991), with its Mongolian folk tunes, paved the way towards the eclectic, humane, ironic virtuoso music of the 1990s and 2000s, of which we may mention the Clarinet Quintet (1997).

Tonal colour is an important element in the chamber music of Harri Vuori (1957-). Harri Suilamo (1954-) is of roughly the same age; he writes austere, compact textures, while Oliver Kohlenberg (1957-) prefers to operate with the sonata form, among other things (Grosse Sonate für zwei Klaviere, 1995). The early works of Tapio Tuomela (1958-) are almost Webernesque in their conciseness, and recently he has introduced ethnic Finnish and Sámi elements into his idiom.


The expanding range of styles and influences in the 1990s

Entering the 1990s, the strict Modernist hegemony began to yield to a more tolerant and pluralist atmosphere; this happened elsewhere too. More traditional sound ideals and forms have found their way into the toolbox of the most hard-lined Modernist. At the same time, composers of classical music have gone looking beyond their genre: traditional music, non-European music and popular cultures have yielded many fruitful connections. Modernist works written for period instruments are a curiosity unto themselves; one of the finest of these is Jukka Tiensuu's Musica ambigua (1998).

Veli-Matti Puumala (1965-) has his roots in Modernism; his output includes post-Serialist complexity yet also rich colours and broad texture surfaces. The best-known of his chamber music works is the dramatic virtuoso-style String Quartet (1994). A freer approach to a variety of stylistic elements is taken by Seppo Pohjola (1965-), whose principal chamber music works are his three String Quartets. Juhani Nuorvala (1961-) writes music in a relaxed 1990s vein, infiltrated by jazz, disco, Minimalism and Neo-Romanticism.

Jukka Koskinen (1965-) explored dimensions of the rough, the rugged and the revolting in his early chamber music works. His five-minute String Quartet (a Rostrum winner from 1989) is a classic in its genre in Finnish music. Other Expressionist and Modernist composers we might mention are Markus Fagerudd (1961-) and Hannu Pohjannoro (1963-). In the younger generation, significant chamber music has been written by Lotta Wennäkoski (1970-), Johan Tallgren (1971-) and Juha T. Koskinen (1972-).


The new millennium is here - long live freedom!

Although 1980s Modernism in its various individual guises remains strong with us, we should remember at the turn of the millennium that the presence of many post-war mainstream trends is still evident. Many Modernist composers have broadened their horizons; for example, arch-Modernist Paavo Heininen has written music for big band and waltzes for orchestra, while Eero Hämeenniemi, one of the Korvat auki! pioneers, has taken up Indian music, improvisation and a broad-based concept of musicianship. In both cases, this development is not about abandoning earlier aesthetic perspectives but about seeking new and refreshing influences.

The very youngest generation of composers contains both Modernists and those working with a freer style. Perttu Haapanen (1972-) writes concise and complex Modernist music against a background of highly diverse motifs: Zen meditation combined with graphic design and controlled improvisation (Ak'kha, 1999), or commedia dell'arte masquerades combined with tonal colour and fields (Trans-Portrait, 2001). Compared with Haapanen's conscious problem-setting and density, Uljas Pulkkis (1975-) comes across as a complete contrast. His spectral aesthetics contains shades of Romanticism and seems detached from the most intellectual and avant-garde brands of Modernism.

As a final demonstration of the aesthetic plurality of the turn of the millennium, we might observe that Einojuhani Rautavaara has attained considerable international fame in recent years. After his youthful Neo-Classical and dodecaphonic periods, he progressed to a combination of elements in an almost Post-Modernist vein, although in his most recent works, such as the string quintet Les cieux inconnues (1997), he has sought a more integrated synthesis of materials.

The success and international profile of Rautavaara demonstrates in its way that the more traditional expressive idiom is alive and well alongside the Modernism(s) of today.


In Focus: Kaija Saariaho and Magnus Lindberg

There are many connections between the careers of Kaija Saariaho (1952-) and Magnus Lindberg (1958-), although they are quite different composers. Both were members of the Korvat auki! (Ears open!) group in the late 1970s, and both settled in Paris in the 1980s - Saariaho permanently. Ircam in Paris has been important to both, and chamber music forms an important part of both their work.

Saariaho's chamber music is dominated by strong sensations, colours, fragrances and moods. Her broad palette includes Monet's water lilies (Nymphea, 1987), Gauguin's ecstatic colour surfaces (NoaNoa, 1992), and gardens of Japanese (Six Japanese Gardens, 1995) or North African (the opera L'Amour de loin, 2000) origin. Often she also explores collisions of disparate elements, textures and colours, as in Nymphea for string quartet and electronics, where "bright, fragile textures" are joined by "violent, fragmenting masses of sound". In some cases, she makes a study of sonorities: Neiges (1998) for eight cellos is, according to the composer, a sort of set of variations on snow, focusing on the sombre low sound of the cello ensemble and symmetrical structures.

The very title of an early piece for cello and piano, Im Traume (1980), can be taken as a manifesto for Saariaho's subsequent chamber music output: her musical surfaces can aptly be described as dreamlike and lyrical in a Tarkovskian sense. Live electronics is an important element in her chamber music; one of the finest examples of this is Lonh (1996) for soprano and electronics, which received the music prize of the Nordic Council in 2000.

Magnus Lindberg's chamber music is about streamlining, rapid pace and a brilliant command of the tradition. He has assimilated ideas and philosophical concepts from Modernist classics such as Globokar, Berio and Stockhausen on one hand, but Lindberg has also cited Monteverdi, Debussy and Bartók as influences particularly with regard to his orchestral and chamber music. All these influences merge in Lindberg's highly original sonority and compact texture, where allusions to tradition are difficult if not impossible to spot.

Lindberg's chamber music does not stem only from great classical composers; he is equally comfortable with jazz (Related Rocks, 1997) or the acrobatic humour of Buster Keaton (Steamboat Bill Jr., 1990). Kinetic energy is the common denominator in many of Lindberg's chamber music works, sometimes even functioning as a structural force, as in the early ...de Tartuffe, je crois (1981), where the multitude of materials creates an energy field that his confident sense of dramaturgy keeps compact and under control.

Lindberg's output includes a wide variety of ensembles, and his formal designs change from one work to the next; he has only written one chamber music piece that falls into a conventional genre (the Clarinet Quintet, 1992). He has written works for such diverse ensembles as clarinet and two bass drums (Ablauf, 1988), accordion and percussion (Metal Works, 1984) or clarinet, guitar, vibraphone, piano and cello (Decorrente, 1992).


In Focus: Finnish chamber music flourishes in summer

Finland is a country with a population of five million and with almost half a million summer cottages. The cottage season begins in spring and continues until the first snowfall; for this brief space of time, people flock away from cities and to the shores of Finland's numerous lakes. Finnish musical life follows suit: small-scale festivals make up for the holiday season in the orchestral concert series of the cities.

A highly successful case in point is the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival. It is a remote event by any standards, being held in a tiny town in eastern Finland 600 km from Helsinki and 100 km from the nearest railway station.
Artistically, however, Kuhmo is a metropolis: the Festival is ranked among the ten most important music festivals in the world. Every summer, international top-rank musicians present a high-quality musical offering to an audience consisting of tourists and professional musicians alike. Kuhmo also always has something hot off the press - since its founding in 1970, the Festival has commissioned almost 50 new works. In summer 2002, the Festival and the Ondine label jointly released a six-CD set of the best of Finnish chamber music from a period spanning over 100 years (ODE 984-2S).

Every summer, one in three Finns attends a summer festival, most of which focus on music. The existence of concert halls even in small municipalities and the Finnish way of spending summer form an excellent foundation for chamber music, which has become just as essential a part of Finland's summer as mosquitoes and a sauna by the lake.


Originally printed as brochure (ISBN 952-5076-33-4)