{"id":317,"date":"2016-09-28T15:42:41","date_gmt":"2016-09-28T13:42:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/?p=317"},"modified":"2016-12-01T11:53:12","modified_gmt":"2016-12-01T10:53:12","slug":"korvat-auki-ohren-auf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/2016\/09\/28\/korvat-auki-ohren-auf\/?lang=en","title":{"rendered":"Korvat auki! Open your ears!"},"content":{"rendered":"Radio \u00d61 journalist Peter Kislinger provides\u00a0a survey of the mdw Festival \u201916 focus on Nordic compositions and describes how even Jean Sibelius was already bedevilled by notions of the \u201ctypically Nordic\u201d.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cMusic is about as rooted in Nordic countries as is the orange tree.\u201d As late as 1800, this scornful opinion was voiced by none other than Hegel. But now, 200 years later, these countries\u2014above all Finland\u2014export more music and musicians to the South than the South does oranges to the North. Music from these countries is frequently reduced to clich\u00e9s: northern light, melancholy, calm, cold, nature. But music is a sovereign land with its own laws.<\/p>\n

Wherein lies that which is special about Nordic music, and\/or about the North\u2019s current musical output? For years, my answer has been: there is no \u201cNordic\u201d music, just as there is no \u201cmodern\u201d music. What do the quarter-tone compositions of Sampo Haapam\u00e4kis have to do with Aho\u2019s 16 polystylistic symphonies, and what do the latter have to do with Lindberg\u2019s Kraft<\/em>, or Kraft<\/em> with Al largo<\/em>? Or Rautavaara\u2019s serial 4th Symphony Arabescata<\/em> with his 7th Symphony Angel of Light<\/em>, P\u00e4rt\u2019s first three symphonies with Fratres<\/em>, P\u0113teris Vask\u2019s violin concerto Distant Light<\/em> with Saariaho\u2019s electro-acoustic Jardin secret<\/em>, or the latter with Saariaho\u2019s symphonic Orion<\/em>, and what characteristics are common to the clarinet concertos of Aho, Eliasson, Hakkola, Fagerlund, Kaipainen, Rautavaara, Saariaho, and Tiensuu? The answer is that they were all written during the past 40 years by people born in the North. And if I were to win the \u201cEuromillionen\u201d jackpot, I\u2019d offer my entire winnings to anyone who could credibly discern just what is Nordic or Baltic or even Finnish, Swedish, Latvian, or Lithuanian about such works.<\/p>\n

Both in Finland and elsewhere, opined Finnish composer and musicologist Mikko Heini\u00f6, there is a widespread belief that music from Finland is typically Finnish by nature. And from there, it\u2019s easy to conclude that \u201cmusic that employs certain stylistic elements is typically Finnish by nature,\u201d etc. This misunderstanding already plagued Jean Sibelius: national school, \u201capparition from the woods\u201d, meadows, 187,888 lakes. And in our latitudes, some concertgoers and even musicians still can\u2019t think of much more than that. His true achievement, said Sibelius in 1915 at the age of 50, went unrecognised. The self-ironic sigh in his diary that read, \u201cFor most people, you\u2019ll remain an apparition from the woods,\u201d is to this day misused in Central Europe as a sort of teaser or catch line in newspaper stories. Back in 1892, his idiosyncratic Kullervo Symphony<\/em> was labelled \u201cunmistakably Finnish\u201d. And then as now, people believed to hear the Finnish summer, Finnish chirping of birds, forest weavers, the sound of a shepherd\u2019s horn. Enviable, this ability to hear what’s Finnish about all this and also identify migrating birds\u2019 nationality! This \u201cability\u201d was actually the product of a PR campaign that was launched one month before the work\u2019s premi\u00e8re. The press described\u00a0Kullervo<\/em> as \u201cauthentically Finnish\u201d, \u201chighly original\u201d, and \u201cthe most significant Finnish masterpiece ever composed\u201d. Weeks before, insiders had still shaken their heads at the work\u2019s \u201cvery difficult language\u201d. But then: \u201cWe recognise the melodies as our own, though we\u2019ve never heard them in this way.\u201d And the reason was that the Swedish-speaking Sibelius had only gotten to know Finnish folksongs during his mid-20s, and his own style had developed not through reliance on folklore, but as early as 1890\/91 in Vienna. Kullervo<\/em>, in any event, was sold to its overwhelmingly Swedish-speaking but Finnophile audience\u2014whose musical socialisation was thoroughly European\u2014as something typically Finnish. But Sibelius had created the archaic impression made by the Kullervo Symphony<\/em> using not Finnish folklore, but three established techniques: church modes, quartal harmony, and 5\/4 metres.<\/p>\n

Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara (*1928), who passed away on 27 July of this year, warned back in the 1970s that the \u201cconsciousness of thousands of years of European musical tradition\u201d had still \u201cnot yet come of age\u201d during the 20th century. Styles and techniques, he said, are elements of \u201cone and the same dense fabric\u201d. By this, he meant not stylistic mixing, but rather a \u201cbelief in synthesis\u201d\u2014but he was conscious of how contradictory styles and compositional methods lead to violating the taboos of any system. And taboos, he said, are \u201coften not much more than witnesses to short-sightedness and, frequently, to racism.\u201d That which \u201cthe zeitgeist demands\u201d, the \u201cup-to-date\u201d, had indeed not concerned him since Cantus arcticus<\/em> (1972): \u201cUp-to-date music? What\u2019s that supposed to be? The times demand nothing at all\u2014but people do, and their demands depend on the times.\u201d Those in art who \u201cgo along with the times are doomed to fall behind them. Almost before you realise it, the most radical modernists have become the most rabid conservatives. But it’s no use to snobbishly state: if my art is not in keeping tune the times, then it\u2019s the fault of those times. I\u2019d rather have my music be timeless than in tune with the times.\u201d<\/p>\n

His students Aho, Lindberg, and Salonen, though they work in different styles, have made similar statements\u2014most pronouncedly Kalevi Aho (*1949): \u201cTypical of the present in Europe is an ideal of freedom that rests upon oscillation and plurality. From this, I conclude that it is impossible to speak of a centre of musical development. I find it somehow amazing how provincial and chauvinistic attitudes can be in Paris, London, or Vienna. The contemporary music circles there are no larger than they are in Finland. Much of what recently still counted as progressive is now pass\u00e9. What is new about musical material is not of value in and of itself. New things do not arise exclusively from new compositional techniques. More important are content and that which I call musical dramaturgy.\u201d<\/p>\n

So korvat auki!<\/em> Open your ears! Give a listen to some works by Nordic composers, many of whom I\u2019ve mentioned above. And who knows: perhaps I\u2019ll even lose my bet…<\/p>\n