A remark made sometime in the ’50s is still often quoted: “As a composer, Englund is the salt of the earth.” The comment illustrates the key position held by Einar Englund (1916-1999) in postwar Finnish music. The premiere of his First Symphony in 1947 marked a turning-point and heralded a new era in Finnish music. Englund gave voice to a young generation which had survived the war and lost all its illusions, and in so doing he swept away the lingering National Romantic idyll. It was also no mean feat that he succeeded in rejuvenating the symphony, the most highly valued genre of all in the land of Sibelius.
Ever since his breakthrough years, Englund’s style was associated with Neoclassicism, and his music shows affinities with Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Bartók’s late period. His œuvre, stylistically coherent, is dominated by rhythmic drive and a clear, powerful orchestral sound with frequent use of doubling, with a melodic-harmonic thinking peppered with dissonances but founded solidly in tonality. Dense motivic work and thematic thinking underlie his compositions. Englund favoured the established genres symphony, concerto, sonata and also cultivated traditional forms in the individual movements of his works.
Englund was an accomplished pianist, and often moulded his material at the piano. “I play through my material hundreds of times to tes t it for its fatigue point. Only if the musical idea retains its original freshness despite wear is it worth keeping”, he has said. It is not surprising that the efficient use of instruments and unaffected expression were his guiding principles.
Englund was an advocate of ‘absolute music’. His weightiest works are his seven symphonies; other major series include concertos and, since the late ’70s, chamber music works. He composed also some piano music, though less than one might expect considering his mastery of the instrument. Vocal music plays a minor role in his work perhaps combining words with music conflicted with his ideal of the absolute.
Although Englund gained early attention
with a Piano Quintet (1941), the premiere of the First Symphony (1946) in January 1947 marked his real breakthrough. The war was generally perceived as the work’s psychological background, echoed in the heavy tread of march rhythms and the desolate melancholy of the slow movement. The composer, however, later rejected the epithet War Symphony, preferring to characterize the work as “the joyous shout of a young man who survived the war”.
The Second Symphony, or Blackbird Symphony (1948) continues in the path opened up by the First, but takes the means of expression further in every respect. This is probably the composer’s best-known work, and it set the tone for much of the Finnish music of the period. The subtitle reflects the woodwind figures accompanying the main theme of the opening movement and the birdsong imitation in the slow movement. In contrast with a lyrical feeling for nature, the music also contains tragic and grotesque elements culminating in the danse macabre of the final movement.
Despite his penchant for ‘the absolute’, Englund composed some incidental music, including two one-act ballets. The first of the set, Sinuhe (1953), was originally scored for piano, but the composer arranged its material into an orchestral suite entitled Neljä tanssi-impressiota (Four Dance Impressions; 1954); later (1965) he made an orchestral arrangement of the full score. Englund’s second ballet, Odysseus (1959), was composed for Birgit Cullberg, the renowned Swedish dancer and choreographer. Of his other incidental music, the best-known was composed for Max Frisch’s play The Great Wall of China (1949), containing stylized elements of tango, rumba and jazz. Besides music for the stage, Englund also composed film scores, notably the music to Erik Blomberg’s film The White Reindeer (1952), which brought Englund the Jussi Award, the Finnish equivalent to the Oscar.
Englund composed six concertos for solo instrument to date, the first being the Cello Concerto (1954), his most lyrical, undemonstrative and reflective work in the genre. The First Piano Concerto (1955) is still one of the most frequently played Finnish works of its kind. The composer himself played the solo in the first performance, and is said to have improvised the cadenza then and there. Bartók’s Third Piano Concerto has been mentioned as the work’s closest predecessor. Apart from stylistic affinities, Bartók is brought to mind by the use of folk music an original Lapp joiku [yoik]chant as the material for the principal theme of the first movement. The motif is used extensively in the energetic finale: it re-emerges at the beginning of the movement, parts of the fugue are based on its retrograde, and the concerto closes with the motif’s romantically grandiose reappearance.
In Englund’s wake, Neoclassicism
became the dominant style in Finnish music during the first post-war decade. In the 1950s, however, the twelve-tone technique came to the fore, followed briefly by total serialism and the radical international trends of the 1960s. Englund had no wish to jump on the bandwagon, which he cited as the main reason why he stopped composing in the late 1950s. In 1976 he stated: “In the light of my strict musical education, the new trends were like a mockery of the composer as a serious artist. As a result, there was nothing left for me to do but bide my time, waiting for a more propitious moment.”
During the fifteen years (1955–70) that followed the First Piano Concerto, the only large-scale work apart from the orchestral arrangement of Sinuhe in 1965 was the ballet Odysseus (1959). Otherwise, all he composed during this period were two piano pieces Sonatina no. 1 and Prelude (both 1966) and a Chaconne (1969) for chorus. Englund concentrated on his work as a critic and teacher.
As the most fanatic Modernist zeal began to wear off in the latter half of the 1960s, the spectrum of Finnish music broadened again, and the more propitious moment for which Englund had been waiting had arrived. He returned to the limelight with his Third Symphony, subtitled Barbarossa (1971). This work reflects the composer’s commitment to traditional structures. The symphony consists of four movements. The slow movement combines a passacaglia with a siciliano; the finale is an energetic fugue. Englund followed up on his early concertos with the Second Piano Concerto (1974), distinguished from its predecessor by its broad symphonic sweep.
The style of Englund’s second period, which began in the 1970s, was essentially unchanged from that of his early works. The emotional range of the music, however, expanded, mainly in the direction of lyricism and nostalgia. This is particularly evident in the Fourth Symphony (1976), scored for strings and percussion only and aptly subtitled Nostalgic Symphony. The nostalgia is deepest in the two middle movements, which contain touching references to Sibelius and Tchaikovsky. The personal, retrospective quality of Englund’s Fourth contrasts strongly with the solemn ceremoniousness of the one-movement Fifth Symphony (1977), subtitled Fennica, and composed to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Finnish independence.
In the late ’70s, Englund
composed his first extensive works for small ensemble since the early Piano Quintet: the Piano Sonata (1978) and the Sonata for violin and piano (1979). The former composition, mainly Prokofievian in character, remains Englund’s only major work for piano solo, although he composed a few smaller piano pieces, including Pavane e Toccata (1983) and the Sonatina no. 2 (1984). He continued, however, to produce extensive chamber music works, including a Sonata for cello and piano (1982), a Piano Trio (1982), a String Quartet (1985) and a Wind Quintet (1989). These works express his respect for tradition, in that they represent the essential genres of chamber music cultivated in the Classical-Romantic era. Englund’s chamber music is marked by strong motivic work, a certain symphonic quality translated to smaller ensembles, although it also has a lively musicianly element.
The 1980s was Englund’s most prolific period for large-scale compositions. A unifying link between the main strands in Englund’s œuvre is provided by the unusual Concerto for 12 Cellos (1981), which combines elements of chamber music with orchestral and concertante dimensions. The Serenade for Strings (1983) builds a bridge between chamber music and orchestral music.
A more lyrical and songful aspect of Englund’s musical world emerges in the Violin Concerto (1981). The solo part concentrates on painting broad melody lines without virtuoso aspirations. The work also reveals a Romantic streak in the composer. In his two later concertos, Englund sought a very different relation between soloist and orchestra. The Flute Concerto (1985) avoids the lyricism usually associated with the instrument, casting the flute in a more dynamic role. By way of contrast, the Clarinet Concerto (1991) establishes something more like a serene balance between soloist and orchestra. The Sixth Symphony (1984), subtitled Aphorisms, differs from Englund’s other works in the genre in that it adds a mixed choir to the orchestra. The text consists of aphorisms by the Classical Greek philosopher Herakleitos. Even here, the absolute nature of Englund’s music is never called into question; characteristically, the focus of the work is on a long scherzo during which the choir is silent. The Seventh Symphony (1988) is again a purely orchestral work, ranging from the fairytale nostalgia of the second movement through a splendid waltz in the third movement to warlike drama in the finale.
Translation © Timothy Binham