Aulis Sallinen

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Aulis Sallinen
Aulis Sallinen.jpg
Aulis Sallinen at the Academic Bookstore in Helsinki, Finland, in 2009
Born
Aulis Heikki Sallinen

(1935-04-09) 9 April 1935 (age 89)
Salmi, Finland
NationalityFinnish
Occupationcomposer
Known forsymphonies
opera
Notable workOperas Ratsumies (The Horseman) and Punainen viiva (The Red Line)

Aulis Heikki Sallinen (born 9 April 1935) is a Finnish contemporary classical music composer. [1] His music has been variously described as "remorselessly harsh", a "beautifully crafted amalgam of several 20th-century styles", and "neo-romantic". [2] [3] Sallinen studied at the Sibelius Academy, where his teachers included Joonas Kokkonen. He has had works commissioned by the Kronos Quartet, and has also written seven operas, eight symphonies, concertos for violin, cello, flute, horn, and English horn, as well as several chamber works. He won the Nordic Council Music Prize in 1978 for his opera Ratsumies ( The Horseman ).

Contents

Childhood and studies

Sallinen was born in Salmi. During his childhood the family moved several times for his father's work, and during the Evacuation of Finnish Karelia in 1944 the family relocated to Uusikaupunki, where he went to school. [4]

His first instruments were the violin and the piano. He learned to play both jazz and classical music. [5] He spent much time during his teenage years improvising. After a while, he began writing his ideas down on paper and began serious composition. He attended the Sibelius Academy of Music and studied with a number of teachers such as Aarre Merikanto and Joonas Kokkonen. [6]

Early career and operas

After graduating, Sallinen took a position as composition teacher at the Sibelius Academy and continued composing. Among his pupils were Jouni Kaipainen and the Austrian-born Finnish composer Herman Rechberger.

Sallinen was appointed as the general manager of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra in 1960 and held the position until 1969. [7] He was the chairman of the board of the Society of Finnish Composers between 1971 and 1974. [8] Though he was a known teacher and was on many boards of directors, his compositions were not particularly noted until 1976, when he was made "Artist Professor" by the Finnish government, allowing him to concentrate on composing. [9]

Sallinen's first opera, Ratsumies, known in English as The Horseman, premiered at the Savonlinna Opera Festival in 1975. His second opera, Punainen viiva ( The Red Line ), was commissioned by the Finnish National Opera. Sallinen's next opera, Kuningas lähtee Ranskaan ( The King Goes Forth to France ), was a joint commission by Covent Garden and the Finnish National Opera. [5]

Later life

After he received his lifelong "artist professorship", Sallinen devoted most of his time to composing. He has received a number of commissions and has composed eight symphonies, including one using material from a proposed ballet based on The Lord of the Rings [10] and containing two mediaeval Finnish tunes from the Piae Cantiones . He has written seven operas and also composed the title track of the Kronos Quartet's album Winter Was Hard .

Career highlights

Selected works

Operas

Symphonies

Orchestral

Concertos

Chamber music

Vocal and choral

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Shadows, Op. 52, is an orchestral prelude by the Finnish composer Aulis Sallinen, who wrote the piece in 1982 on commission from the National Symphony Orchestra Association. The prelude's thematic material is closely related to Act III of Sallinen's third opera, The King Goes Forth to France, on which he also was at work in 1982, writing Shadows upon completion of Act II of the opera. Nevertheless, the composer has emphasized that Shadows is "an entirely independent orchestral work", albeit one whose "lyrical and dramatic ingredients reflect the philosophy of the opera". The National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) premiered the work on 30 November 1982 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., under the direction of its music director, Mstislav Rostropovich. Shadows so impressed Rostropovich and his orchestra that the NSO requested Sallinen compose a symphony for them, the result of which would be the Fifth (1985).

References

  1. ↑ Paavilainen, Ulla, ed. (2014). Kuka kukin on: Henkilötietoja nykypolven suomalaisista 2015[Who’s Who in Finland, 2015] (in Finnish). Helsinki: Otava. pp. 800–801. ISBN   978-951-1-28228-0.
  2. ↑ Henahan, Donal: "Music: Finnish Opera Offers Sallinen's 'Red Line.'"The New York Times. 29 April 1983.
  3. ↑ Parsons, Jeremy: The Musical Times. Vol. 121, No. 1653 (Nov. 1980), pp. 693–695.
  4. ↑ Sivuoja-Gunaratnam, Anne. "Sallinen, Aulis (1935–)" . Biografiakeskus (in Finnish). Retrieved 27 October 2016.
  5. 1 2 "Biography". all music guide. Retrieved 26 October 2016.
  6. ↑ "Aulis Sallinen". Ondine. Retrieved 26 October 2016.
  7. ↑ Karttunen, Antero: Radion sinfoniaorkesteri 1927–2002, p. 78
  8. ↑ "About us". composers.fi.
  9. ↑ "Sallinen, Aulis (*1935): Fennica Gehrman – Finnish sheet music". www.fennicagehrman.fi.
  10. ↑ Bratman, David (2010). "Liquid Tolkien: Music, Tolkien, Middle-earth, and More Music". In Eden, Bradford Lee (ed.). Middle-earth Minstrel: Essays on Music in Tolkien. McFarland. pp. 162–163. ISBN   978-0-7864-5660-4.
  11. ↑ Djupsjöbacka, Tove (26 January 2023). "Barabbas var ingen buse utan en frihetskampe" . Hufvudstadsbladet (in Swedish). Helsingfors. pp. 18–19.
  12. ↑ Tiikkaja, Samuli (8 June 2023). "Naantalin vahdinvaihto". Helsingin Sanomat (in Finnish). pp. B 1–2.
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