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Kaija Saariaho

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Kaija Saariaho
Saariaho in 2013
Born
Kaija Laakkonen

(1952-10-14)14 October 1952
Helsinki,Finland
Died2 June 2023(2023-06-02)(aged 70)
Paris, France
EraContemporary
WorksList of compositions
Spouse
Jean-Baptiste Barrière
​
​
(m.1984)​
Children2

Kaija Anneli Saariaho(Finnish:[ˈkɑi̯jɑˈsɑːriɑho];néeLaakkonen;14 October 1952 – 2 June 2023) was a Finnish composer based in Paris, France. During the course of her career, Saariaho received commissions from theLincoln Centerfor theKronos Quartetand fromIRCAMfor theEnsemble Intercontemporain,theBBC,theNew York Philharmonic,theSalzburg Music Festival,theThéâtre du Châteletin Paris, and theFinnish National Opera,among others.[1]In a 2019 composers' poll byBBC Music Magazine,Saariaho was ranked the greatest living composer.[2]

Saariaho studied composition in Helsinki,Freiburg,and Paris, where she also lived since 1982. Her research at theInstitute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music (IRCAM)marked a turning point in her music away from strictserialismtowardsspectralism.Her characteristically rich,polyphonictextures are often created by combining live music and electronics.

Life and work

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Saariaho was born inHelsinki,Finland. She played violin, guitar and piano growing up, and received her primary and secondary education at a Steiner school.[3]In university she studied first splitting her time between studying graphic design at theAalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture,piano at theHelsinki Conservatorium[fi]and musicology at theUniversity of Helsinki;and then she later studied composition at theSibelius Academyunder the guidance ofPaavo Heininen.[3]After attending theDarmstadt Summer Courses,she moved to Germany to study at theHochschule für Musik FreiburgunderBrian FerneyhoughandKlaus Huber.She found her Freiburg teachers' emphasis onstrict serialismand mathematical structures stifling, saying in an interview:

You were not allowed to have pulse, or tonally oriented harmonies, or melodies. I don't want to write music through negations. Everything is permissible as long as it's done in good taste.[4]

In 1980, Saariaho went to the Darmstadt Summer Courses and attended a concert of the FrenchspectralistsTristan MurailandGerard Grisey.[5]Hearing spectral music for the first time marked a profound shift in Saariaho's artistic direction. These experiences guided her decision to attend courses incomputer musicthat were being given byIRCAM,the computer music research institute in Paris, by David Wessel, Jean-Baptiste Barrière, and Marc Battier.

In 1982, she began work at IRCAM researching computer analyses of the sound-spectrum of individual notes produced by different instruments. She developed techniques for computer-assisted composition, experimented withmusique concrète,and wrote her first pieces combining live performance with electronics. She also composed new works using IRCAM's CHANT synthesiser.[6]Each of her Jardin Secret trilogy was created with the use of computer programs.Jardin secret I(1985),Jardin secret II(1986), andNymphea (Jardin secret III)(1987).[7]Her works with electronics were developed in collaboration with Jean-Baptiste Barrière, a composer, multimedia artist, and computer scientist who directed the IRCAM's department of musical research from 1984 to 1987. Saariaho and Barrière married in 1984. They have two children.[8]

In Paris, Saariaho developed an emphasis on slow transformations of densemasses of sound.[9]Her first tape piece,Vers Le Blancfrom 1982, and her orchestral and tape work,Verblendungen,are both constructed from a single transition: inVers Le Blancthe transition is from onepitch clusterto another, while inVerblendungen,it is from loud to quiet.Verblendungenalso uses a pair of visual ideas as its basis: a brush stroke which starts as a dense mark on the page and thins out into individual strands, and the wordVerblendungenitself, which means "dazzlements, delusions, blindedness".[10][11]

Her work in the 1980s and 1990s was marked by an emphasis ontimbreand the use ofelectronicsalongside traditional instruments.Nymphéa (Jardin secret III)(1987), for example, is forstring quartetand live electronics and contains an additional vocal element: the musicians whisper the words of anArseny Tarkovskypoem,Now Summer is Gone.In writingNymphea,Saariaho used afractalgenerator to create material. Writing about the compositional process, Saariaho said:

In preparing the musical material of the piece, I have used the computer in several ways. The basis of the entire harmonic structure is provided by complex cello sounds that I have analysed with the computer. The basic material for the rhythmic and melodic transformations are computer-calculated in which the musical motifs gradually convert, recurring again and again.[12]

Saariaho often talked about having a kind ofsynaesthesia,one that involves all of the senses, saying:

... the visual and the musical world are one to me... Different senses, shades of colour, or textures and tones of light, even fragrances and sounds blend in my mind. They form a complete world in itself.[13]

Another example isSix Japanese Gardens(1994), a percussion piece accompanied by a prerecorded electronic layer of the Japanese nature, traditional instruments, and chanting of Buddhist monks. During her visit to Tokyo in 1993, she expanded her original percussion conception into a semi-indeterminatepiece. It consists of six movements that each represent a garden composed of traditional Japanese architecture, by which she was inspired rhythmically. Especially in movement IV and V, she explored many possibilities of complexpolyrhythmin liberated instrumentation. She said:

... I felt a connection between architecture and music: both art forms select and introduce materials, let them grow, give them form, prepare new contrasting elements, create different relations between the materials.[14]: 18 

In her book on Saariaho, musicologistPirkko Moisala[fi;sv]writes about the indeterminate nature of this composition:

[Kaija said:] 'There are so many kinds of percussion instruments which I do not know. I thought that it would be most interesting to see how the musicians choose their instruments in certain passages.' the identity and character of the composition remains the same even when the instruments are changed; each musical idea requires certain kinds of sound color but not a particular instrument.

On 1 December 2016, theMetropolitan Operagave its first performance ofL'Amour de loin,the second opera by a female composer ever to be presented by the company (the first was performed more than a century earlier, in 1903).[15]The subsequent transmission of the opera to cinema on 10 December 2016 as part of theMetropolitan Opera Live in HDseries marked the first opera by a female composer, and the first opera conducted by a female conductor (Susanna Mälkki), in the series. In 2002 the Santa Fe Opera presentedL'Amour de loin.In 2008, the Santa Fe Opera also presented her operaAdriana Mater.

Saariaho was the patron of the Helsinki Music Centre organ project and endowed the construction of a new organ in theHelsinki Music Centrewith one million euros.[16]She was also the chair of the International Kaija Saariaho Organ Composition Competition,[17]which selected in April 2023 eleven compositions.[18]

Saariaho was diagnosed withglioblastomain February 2021. She died in Paris on 2 June 2023, at age 70.[19]

Her very last work,HUSH,a concerto for trumpet and orchestra, was given its world premiere on 24 August 2023 at theHelsinki Music CentrewithVerneri Pohjolaand theFinnish Radio Symphony Orchestraconducted bySusanna Mälkki.[20][21]While the premiere was posthumous, Saariaho had been able to hear the work herself at a rehearsal in the spring of 2023. The piece is conceived as a response to Saariaho's own first concertoGraal Théâtreand based on a text by Aleksi Barrière,[22]Saariaho's son and librettist of some of her last works.

Awards and honours

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Selected works

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Main article:List of compositions by Kaija Saariaho

Saariaho's works include:[44][45]

  • Verblendungen(1984; orchestra, electronics)
  • Lichtbogen(1986; flute, percussion, piano, harp, strings, live electronics)
  • Io(1987; large ensemble, electronics)
  • Nymphéa(1987; string quartet, electronics)
  • Petals(1988; cello, electronics)
  • Du cristal...(1989; orchestra, live electronics)
  • ...à la Fumée(1990; solo alto flute and cello, orchestra)
  • NoaNoa(1992; flute, live electronics)
  • Graal théâtre(1994; violin, orchestra)
  • Folia(1995; double bass, live electronics)
  • Oltra Mar(1999; chorus and orchestra)[8]
  • L'Amour de loin(2000; opera)[46][47]
  • Sept Papillons(2000; solo cello)
  • Orion(2002; orchestra)
  • Asteroid 4179: Toutatis(2005; orchestra)
  • La Passion de Simone(2006; oratorio/opera)
  • Adriana Mater(2006; opera, libretto by Amin Maalouf)
  • Notes on Light(2006; cello concerto)
  • Terra Memoria(2007; string quartet)
  • Laterna Magica(2008; orchestra)
  • Émilie(2010; opera)
  • D'Om le Vrai Sens(2010; clarinet concerto)
  • Circle Map(2012; orchestra)
  • Maan varjot( "Earth's Shadows" ) (2013; organ and orchestra)
  • True Fire(2014; baritone and orchestra)
  • Trans(2015; harp concerto)
  • Only The Sound Remains(2015;Always StrongandFeather Mantle)[48]
  • Innocence(2021; opera)

Selected recordings

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References

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  1. ^"Kaija Saariaho, Ondine Composer".Ondine.28 May 2021.Archivedfrom the original on 20 June 2023.Retrieved28 May2021.
  2. ^Fiilin, Teemu."Kaija Saariaho voted greatest living composer by BBC Music Magazine".Music Finland.Archivedfrom the original on 3 June 2023.Retrieved5 December2019.
  3. ^ab"Saariaho, Kaija (1952–2023)".SKS Henkilöhistoria(in Finnish).Finnish Literature Society.Archivedfrom the original on 16 July 2021.Retrieved24 October2023.
  4. ^Howard Posner."Du cristal".Hollywood Bowl (website).Archivedfrom the original on 6 November 2018.Retrieved5 November2018.
  5. ^Ross, Alex(24 April 2006)."Birth".The New Yorker.Archivedfrom the original on 13 June 2021.Retrieved28 May2021.
  6. ^"The CHANT Project: From the Synthesis of the Singing Voice to Synthesis in General". Rodet, Xavier; Potard, Yves; Barriere, Jean-Baptiste.Computer Music Journal,Vol. 8, No. 3 (Autumn, 1984), p. 30. The MIT Press.https:// jstor.org/stable/3679810.Accessed 19 August 2015.
  7. ^Howell, Tim; Hargreaves, Jon; Rofe, Michael.Kaija Saariaho: visions, narratives, dialogues.Ashgate, 2011. 82–85
  8. ^abEllison, Cori (7 November 1999)."Uncovering Beauty in Ordinary Noise".The New York Times.Archivedfrom the original on 3 January 2017.Retrieved2 January2017.
  9. ^"Biography « Kaija Saariaho".Kaija Saariaho.21 March 2021. Archived fromthe originalon 27 June 2016.Retrieved28 May2021.
  10. ^"Verblendung",Langenscheidt's Condensed Muret-Sanders Dictionary(ed. Heinz Messinger and the Langenscheidt Editorial Staff), 1982
  11. ^"Verblendung | translate German to English".Cambridge Dictionary.25 May 2022.Retrieved31 May2022.
  12. ^Saariaho, Kaija. Programme Note:Nymphéa(1987). New York: Commissioned by the Lincoln Center and Doris & Myron Beigler for the Kronos Quartet., 1987. Print.
  13. ^Moisala 2009,p. 55.
  14. ^Moisala, Pirkko (2009).Kaija Saariaho.Women Composers. University of Illinois Press.ISBN978-0-252-03277-6.
  15. ^Anthony Tommasini(2 December 2016)."Review: A Newly RelevantL'Amour de Loinat the Met ".The New York Times.Archivedfrom the original on 4 August 2019.Retrieved14 December2016.
  16. ^Helsinki Music Centre Foundation."Kaija Saariaho".#PlayTheOrgan – #UrutSoimaan.Retrieved29 April2023.
  17. ^Helsinki Music Centre Foundation."Organ composition competition".#PlayTheOrgan – #UrutSoimaan.Archivedfrom the original on 29 April 2023.Retrieved29 April2023.
  18. ^Helsinki Music Centre Foundation (27 April 2023)."The Kaija Saariaho Organ Composition".#PlayTheOrgan – #UrutSoimaan.Retrieved29 April2023.
  19. ^Pitkänen, Heini; Tiikkaja, Samuli (2 June 2023)."Säveltäjä Kaija Saariaho on kuollut".Helsingin Sanomat(in Finnish).Archivedfrom the original on 2 June 2023.Retrieved2 June2023.
  20. ^"Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Susanna Mälkki, Verneri Pohjola".Helsinki Festival.Archivedfrom the original on 27 August 2023.Retrieved27 August2023.
  21. ^"Radion sinfoniaorkesterin konsertti".Yle Areena.Yle.Archivedfrom the original on 31 August 2023.Retrieved31 August2023.
  22. ^"HUSH | Kaija Saariaho".wisemusicclassical.Archivedfrom the original on 17 December 2023.Retrieved17 December2023.
  23. ^abcMoisala, Pirkko, 'Gender Negotiation of the Composer Kaija Saariaho in Finland: The Woman Composer as Nomadic Subject', inMusic and Gender(Pirkko Moisala and Beverley Diamond, editors). University of Illinois Press (ISBN978-0-252-02544-0), pp. 166–188 (2000).
  24. ^"Nominees 2000".Nordic cooperation.Retrieved15 October2021.
  25. ^"Kaija Saariaho".Schott Music.14 October 1952.Retrieved15 October2021.
  26. ^Moisala, Pirkko (2010).Kaija Saariaho.Women Composers. University of Illinois Press. p. 23.ISBN978-0-252-09193-3.Archivedfrom the original on 20 June 2023.Retrieved15 October2021.
  27. ^Tapio Ollikainen (Summer 2004)."Four measures of Kaija Saariaho".Universitats Helsingiensis.Archivedfrom the original on 4 December 2004.Retrieved2 January2017.
  28. ^"2003 – Kaija Saariaho – Grawemeyer Awards".Grawemeyer Awards.20 July 2003.Archivedfrom the original on 2 December 2021.Retrieved15 October2021.
  29. ^Mark Swed (2008)."The 2008 Honorees: Composer of the Year – Kaija Saariaho".Musical America.Retrieved2 January2017.
  30. ^Wihuri Foundation (2009)."Kaija Saariaho".Archivedfrom the original on 13 December 2017.Retrieved12 December2017.
  31. ^"Die Reinheit der Luft nach dem Regenschauer".Frankfurter Rundschau(in German). 25 July 2010.Retrieved15 October2021.
  32. ^"Léonie Sonning Prize 2011: Kaija Saariaho".Léonie Sonnings Musikfond(Press release). May 2011.Archivedfrom the original on 19 February 2017.Retrieved2 January2017.
  33. ^Tom Service(9 July 2012)."A guide to Kaija Saariaho's music".The Guardian.Archivedfrom the original on 28 July 2016.Retrieved2 January2017.
  34. ^"Kaija A. Saariaho".American Academy of Arts & Sciences.27 July 2023.Archivedfrom the original on 17 December 2023.Retrieved17 December2023.
  35. ^"Kaija Saariaho: Laureate of the Polar Music Prize 2013".Polar Music Prize(Press release). August 2013. Archived fromthe originalon 3 January 2017.Retrieved2 January2017.
  36. ^"The BBVA Foundation recognizes Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho for breaking down the divisions between acoustic and electronic music".BBVA.14 February 2018.Archivedfrom the original on 28 October 2021.Retrieved15 October2021.
  37. ^Künste, Bayerische Akademie der Schönen."Die emotionale Intelligenz – Nachruf auf Kaija Saariaho".badsk.de(in German).Archivedfrom the original on 17 December 2023.Retrieved17 December2023.
  38. ^"Honorary Members – American Academy of Arts and Letters".artsandletters.org.Archived fromthe originalon 3 December 2019.Retrieved17 December2023.
  39. ^"Kaija Saariaho voted greatest living composer by BBC Music Magazine".Music Finland.Archivedfrom the original on 3 June 2023.Retrieved17 December2023.
  40. ^"I Leoni della Biennale Musica 2021".La Biennale di Venezia(in Italian). 12 March 2021.Retrieved15 October2021.
  41. ^Tommasini, Anthony; Woolfe, Zachary; Barone, Joshua; Walls, Seth Colter; Allen, David (6 December 2021)."Best Classical Music of 2021".The New York Times.ISSN0362-4331.Archivedfrom the original on 17 December 2023.Retrieved17 December2023.
  42. ^"Kaija Saariaho et Giuseppe Penone élus membres associés étrangers | Academie des beaux-arts".Kaija Saariaho et Giuseppe Penone élus membres associés étrangers | Academie des beaux-arts(in French).Retrieved17 December2023.
  43. ^"Kaija Saariaho awarded" Academician of Arts "by the President of Finland".wisemusicclassical.Archivedfrom the original on 17 December 2023.Retrieved17 December2023.
  44. ^"Catalogue".wisemusicclassical.Retrieved 18 August 2020.
  45. ^Works "Archived3 June 2023 at theWayback Machine.saariaho.org.Retrieved 18 August 2020.
  46. ^Robert Everett-Green (27 January 2012)."Kaija Saariaho is looking for love in Canada".The Globe and Mail.Toronto.Archivedfrom the original on 9 March 2012.Retrieved3 February2012.
  47. ^"Kaija Saariaho gets lots of love for Love from Afar".The Toronto Star.2 February 2012.Retrieved3 February2012.
  48. ^Andrew Clements (26 March 2016)."Only the Sound Remains review – almost perversely unengaging".The Guardian.Retrieved28 December2016.
  49. ^Saariaho, Kaija; Upshaw, Dawn; Kremer, Gidon; Salonen, Esa-Pekka; Kamariorkesteri Avanti; Radion sinfoniaorkesteri (Helsinki); BBC Symphony Orchestra (London) (2001),Graal Théâtre; Château de l'âme; Amers(in undetermined language), [Lieu de publication non identifié]: Sony Classical,OCLC995496757
  50. ^Saariaho, Kaija; Maalouf, Amin; Sellars, Peter; Kokko, Helena; Finley, Gerald; Upshaw, Dawn; Groop, Monica; Salonen, Esa-Pekka; Tsypin, George; Pakledinaz, Martin (2005),L'amour de loin,Hamburg: Deutsche Grammophon: Distributed by Universal Music & Video Distribution,OCLC724679575
  51. ^Saariaho, Kaija; Cage, John; Maderna, Bruno; Cikada Strykekvartett (2005),Cikada String Quartet – in due tempi(in undetermined language), München: ECM Records,OCLC163365164

Further reading

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