Further to this issue of influence, Saariaho asserted in my interview that the research and work she co-authored with Stephen McAdams was a mere clarification of what she was already practising in her compositions; the potential for timbre to be a form building element was not a new discovery that she could then integrate into her work, but a qualification of a personal methodology that was already active in her compositions (Saariaho 2002a). At IRCAM the academic environment was one where composition stemmed from research; analytical and theoretical work was used in ways that could generate compositional ideas. It is interesting to speculate how much of an influence this, combined with Saariaho’s personal relationship to a high-ranking member of the IRCAM academic staff was on her compositions and aesthetic stance.
Labels such as ‘spectralist’, ‘minimalist’ and even ‘post-modernist’ can be found frequently in journalistic writing that attempts to categorise Saariaho’s work. Labelling per se rarely has anything more than superficial significance, but in these cases can be thoroughly misleading. Saariaho recognises the need for basic categorisation, but states “recently I read to my horror that my music is post-modern, and I think post-modern for me is like a swear word” (Saariaho 2002a). One influence Saariaho is rather more willing to accept is that of formalism, a concept widespread in Finnish art through the 1960s and 70s passed on to Saariaho through her first composition teacher Paavo Heininen (b.1938). Formalism is made manifest in her work towards creating new grammatical or syntactical systems, which may be manipulated to produce form. Saariaho reinvents existing paradigms so that it becomes the very properties of the sounds, the musical materials she uses, that provide the organisational model, such that the connections in a piece of her music are generated from within themselves in accord with grammar and syntax. The search for grammar or syntax, themselves closely related to formalist principles, contributed to Saariaho’s motivation to create form from the properties of sound material itself, a logical route to structural coherence. According to Denis Smalley, this pursuit could be said to be related both to formalism and comprehension: “…those who might be considered descendants of the more formalist/abstract wing of contemporary tradition seem to recognise that in electroacoustic music there can be a problem of musical comprehension.” (Smalley 1993: 295). The emphasis on formal considerations is evidence of Saariaho’s modernist aesthetic, but Smalley’s quote shows that it is possible to temper this with a concern for communication: between composer and performer, and composer and listener.
Saariaho’s use of emotive titles and literary references rather than abstract, removed titles for her works provide links to the real world, away from the abstraction of computers and electronics. The composer is, however, reluctant to reinforce any extra-musical meaning to be derived from a title. Saariaho stated in my interview that she finds it unacceptable for the listener to attach any extra-musical significance to Graal Théâtre from its title. The titles of her works, and instrumental pieces in particular, are there to represent her external stimulus, her starting point for the work, an understanding of which she does not expect or intend the audience to share. She believes that basic knowledge of the possible meaning of a title should be enough for the listener as it ultimately has no bearing on the form. Texts in primarily instrumental works are used as abstract musical material, for example in Nymphea or its string orchestra incarnation Nymphea reflection (2001), where the musicians whisper a poem by Andrey Tarkovsky. The text does not need to be heard for the meaning of the words but for its sound as it blends into the texture. With this in mind, Saariaho encourages listeners to read the poem beforehand, in an attempt to direct their perception to its sound, and to divert them away from spending spend energy trying to hear the words of the text.
Further to this, Saariaho believes that programme notes are essentially unnecessary, in that too much contact with the external or abstract can detract from the musical ideas. In itself, this represents a resistance to music’s perceived capacity to carry emotion or imagery. There arises a strange contradiction from this: why employ emotive titles and programme notes if one believes the music to be ‘enough’? Trying to create an autonomous entity is made more difficult when so many factors around it suggest extra value may be obtained via knowledge of a title’s apparent meaning and the conditions behind a work’s creation. An explanation for this strange paradox can be found by returning to the work environment of IRCAM. Perhaps Saariaho was trying to create a self-referential field to distinguish her work from the rest, and to establish legitimacy? Not that this can be done with the use of a title, but at the very least this does take the focus back to the music, the art, rather than the intellectual process. Conceivably, Saariaho’s place in an overpopulated world was better established through her individual, hermetic, approach to composition.
Form, perception and the sound/noise axis
“The integration of harmony and timbre which spectral techniques promote makes it possible to transform traditional kinds of harmonic thinking without losing touch with the feeling for hierarchy on which the communicativeness of tonality has always depended.” (Whittall 1999: 385)
Whittall’s quote could have been intended to describe Saariaho’s individual aesthetic position. Much of her IRCAM-based study in the early 1980s centred around the pursuit of a grammatical system to replace the tonal system, utilising a procedure grounded in the hierarchical possibilities found when timbre is used according to pitch-based relationships. Another key word is “communicativeness”: as shall be seen, Saariaho’s preoccupation with alternative form-building elements was founded upon a wish to communicate formal structures in a work.
Saariaho assigns particular roles and definitions to form and structure in her writing. To clarify her definition of form, I refer to her 1985 paper ‘Qualities and Functions of Musical Timbre’, co-written with Stephen McAdams: “When we speak of Form we are specifically referring to form as perceived or apprehended, not necessarily the structure created by an artist” (Saariaho and McAdams 1985: 367). In her 1987 essay ‘Timbre and harmony: interpolations of timbral structures’, Saariaho states that “I have never referred to pre-established formal structures in my work. It is through an overall idea of form that I approach different musical parameters and their special problems” (Saariaho 1987: 93). This attitude is particular to her work on timbre and form with McAdams, dating from the 1980s. In summary, ‘form’ is that which is apprehended or perceived by the listener, while ‘structure’ is the form as conceived and created by the artist. This subtle distinction is notable, and when referring to form and structure in this essay, it is with regard to Saariaho’s own definitions and intentions as opposed to any other accepted notion of form or structure.
In the mid-1980s, Saariaho’s experimentation and subsequent research into timbre as a form-building element led her to conclude that there is no apparent universal method of generating form; however, tensions generated by timbre remained central to her technique. To Saariaho, timbre is a quality, a non-specific term, that refers to a synthesis of parameters including the purity and texture of a sound. These parameters can in themselves be subdivided into groupings of distinctive characteristics or constituent elements; for instance, ‘noise’ can be divided into qualities such as ‘harsh’, ‘soft’ and ‘grainy’, or a sound can be classified in terms of, for example, its density, surface profile (envelope), or dynamism. Saariaho established an agenda for herself at this time: to search for order among the limitless realm of sounds available through computer analysis of sounds, to codify and make use of the mass of data derived from progressively more sophisticated studies of acoustic material. Though the computer allowed a much greater degree of control of musical phenomena, it also created vast amounts of material to work with through progressively higher levels of abstraction. Much of Saariaho’s harmonic material, and indeed many basic starting points for pieces, is provided by the spectral analysis of chosen sounds; for instance, the material on the tape for Verblendungen is derived from the analysis of two violin sounds, a pizzicato and a sforzato. The harmony in Lichtbogen (“Arcs/Bows of Light”), a piece for nine musicians and live electronics composed in 1985-86, is based on the computerised analysis of cello sounds undertaken at IRCAM. Here, Saariaho exploits the ambiguity between timbre and harmony through the use of the computer; when subjected to detailed analysis, a pitch appears as a collection of individual components, like a chord. A chord itself is a collection of partials and is thus a timbre.
Saariaho’s experimentation with electronics extends beyond the analysis of sounds, to incorporate synthetic sounds on tape and real time sound manipulation; for example, the pre-IRCAM…sah den Vögeln; Nymphea, where the electronics are not obtrusive, but manipulate and process the sounds of the quartet as they play; and Io for chamber orchestra (1986-87) which utilises a tape of synthetic sounds and uses analyses of inharmonic sounds from the double bass and flute as the model for its harmonic structure. Some pieces are entirely generated with the use of the computer, such as Jardin Secret I for tape (1984-85), in which Saariaho experiments with using the computer to generate all of the musical events and control all of the parameters (utilising the Chant and Formes programs). Her approach in all of these works remains directed towards timbre, harmony and their reciprocal relationships. According to the composer, Jardin Secret I is “an exploration of interpolation processes”, where the opening bell-like tintinnabulations, underpinned by a drone, are subjected to such variety of manipulations and transformations that the opening gesture becomes another timbre, far removed from its original base source (Saariaho in CD sleve notes for Jardin Secret).
While the use of timbre and harmony as the principal form-bearing aspects in Saariaho’s work remains essentially the same over time, each piece has a unique form with related organisation principles. In Saariaho’s earliest compositions from the
1980s, undertaken while occupied with compositional work at the studios of GRM (Groupe de Recherches Musicales), the differentiation between form and material was blurred to the point of being inseparable. For instance, in the tape piece Vers le blanc (“Towards white”, composed at IRCAM after a six-week course early in 1982) or Verblendungen there is no distinction at all between form and material (that is, form and content). The idea of Vers le blanc was to create a piece based around a transformation so slow as to be imperceptible. Over the course of its fifteen minutes, a chord of three sounds transforms gradually into another chord (Example 3a). The material of the composition is the process itself. This creates organic unity, where the progression of the material of the piece via six barely audible glissandi is the very form of the work. It will be seen that similar unifying principles can be found in Graal Théâtre.
Transformation is also the key to Verblendungen, where the conventional notion of musical progression and climax is reversed. Instead, the piece opens with a gigantic fff chord (Example 3b), which subdivides into its own harmonic partials and then dynamically declines over the course of the piece. The initial harmonic material of the orchestral music becomes noise, while the tape part becomes increasingly harmonic until, after continuous imperceptible change, the two have swapped places.
Transformations occur between the tape material and the orchestral material, but as the identities of the two types of material transform they are manipulated so that the listener cannot tell when one becomes the other. It is only at certain points in both pieces that one becomes aware of any change, and this only after much change has already occurred. Here, transformations are made part of an aural ‘deception’, where the context in which the sounds are related is made deliberately ambiguous. It is not without reason that Finnish writer Risto Niemenen noted that “Saariaho has a great fondness for transformations, for the imperceptible shift.” (Niemenen: Finnish Music Quarterly, 3/1988).
Saariaho’s research into the possible form-building properties of timbre involved some concern for and adaptation of tonal methods. The formal potential of sound synthesis is explained as follows:
“Sound synthesis allows the organization of the note itself, introducing harmony into timbre, and reciprocally sound analysis can introduce timbre as a generator of harmony…Timbre manipulation opens up the possibility to look for a continuous scale that could reproduce, in some respects, the expressive means associated with the tonal notions of consonance and dissonance” (McAdams and Pressnitzer 1999: 38).
Saariaho saw the tonal system as one potential model for the creation of opposition and tensions: while she was uncomfortable with using the tonal system for its formal properties, Saariaho posed the problem that she knew of no other equally effective means (Saariaho 1987: 132). The development of new musical forms to suit the sound material was an important issue for Saariaho, who criticised what she called “the out-dated approach to the problems posed by the organization of pitch structures” that she felt other contemporary research involved, although she does not state to whom her criticism is levelled. (Saariaho 1987: 132).
This is not to say that Saariaho was unique in her endeavours. The climate at IRCAM in particular concentrated upon research into the blurring of boundaries between pitch or harmony and timbre or noise through computer synthesis and technology, and its subsequent potential for raising transformations and spectral continua from their traditionally secondary roles to that of being central features of composition. Until form became more closely lined with timbre, no solution to the question of modernist form had been provided. Saariaho’s most individual contribution in this area came with her work on establishing a hierarchy to replace that of tonality. The notion of creating hierarchical structures with timbre was an underdeveloped area of compositional research. It was accepted that timbre or spectral colour could not simply be arranged into ‘scales’ according to pitch models; however, rather than disregard the prospect of timbral classification along the lines of a tonal model, she and McAdams researched the possibility of a hierarchical framework in which timbre could replace harmony as the main formal organisational principle. The question she had in mind was “Can timbre, like tonal harmony, serve to construct similar tensions [to those of rhythm and tonality] on several levels, or would it be […] a secondary parameter in relation to rhythm and tonality, as has often been supposed?” (Saariaho 1987: 131). Through timbre, she aimed to create (albeit tonally-related) structures by changing the various functions of timbre, harmony and intervallic relationships.
In the jointly-written 1985 paper on timbre, Saariaho and McAdams defined six criteria for investigating the form-bearing potential of a proposed musical dimension. A “musical dimension” refers specifically to the various properties of timbre (Saariaho and McAdams 1985:367-368). These criteria are set out below:
- Form-bearing elements are perceptually differentiated into discrete categories.
- The perceptual categories are ordered so that the relations among them are functional.
- The functional relations are of varied strengths and types which allows for the building and release of tension.
- Attention can be paid directly to qualities of a category, to qualities of relations among categories, or to combinations of relations.
- The categories, functional relations and ordering within a classification system must either reflect the existing structure of the mind and world or be susceptible to learning by listeners if the structures are to be apprehended as musical form.
- Relations among categories must be able to maintain a certain degree of invariance under various classes of transformations.
From these criteria we can see that Saariaho and McAdams directly relate the categorisation of the properties of musical entities to artificial differentiation according to categories of musical pitch, and to the unconscious categorisation which occurs in the human auditory system. This is specific to McAdams’s work in psychoacoustics, where it is believed that cognition of and familiarity with a musical entity is necessary in order for it to be memorable and thus contribute to the building of musical form. Different musical entities are “functional” according to how they are related in their context, for example, the categorisation of two intervals into a fifth or a seventh, which identifies them with a particular function in the context of a tonal composition. This recalls the different strengths of relations between degrees of the scale, where the nature of the relationship is closely bound to the tonal context in which it takes place, though these relationships still retain independence away from their context. Saariaho and McAdams elaborate on point four: “With pitch for example, one can focus on the pitch itself, to the quality of an interval between two pitches or to the quality of a chord as an assembly of intervals. In different musical contexts one or the other of these levels of attention are more important for the extraction of musical structure.” (Saariaho and McAdams 1985: 368). The conclusion from this is that elements or patterns must remain recognisable as derivations of previous elements, that is, they must still be perceived as related, in order to be a constituent of form.
In summary, form is accumulated in the memory of the listener over time, and therefore the elements which contribute to form must be discernible in order to remain in the memory, and must be prominent in the music. Saariaho’s collaborative work on psychoacoustics led her to conclude that, particularly with the spectral approach, what is formally important must be what the listener perceives. In terms of music listening and comprehension, much of our expectation in the concert hall is founded on acculturation, what we have absorbed from the particular culture to which we belong. Throughout Western musical history, expectation and predictability based upon culturally acquired ‘rules’ have been exploited; for example, in unexpected modulations or a Beethovenian false recapitulation. However, as modern composers have found, when there is no established musical language, the dichotomy of expectation and deception is undermined. Memory is a fundamental attribute for the ability to model and comprehend event sequences over time; equally, the intelligibility of musical structures relies upon cognition and recall. By founding her compositional systems on the structure of sound, thus making the form of a piece part of its actual materials, Saariaho gives the listener immediately comprehensible reference points, while creating structures which are concealed.
In Saariaho’s view, the traditional conception of timbre and harmony’s functions was that timbre had a ‘vertical’ function and harmony a ‘horizontal’ function, meaning “Harmony…provides the impetus for movement, whilst timbre constitutes the matter which follows this movement”(Saariaho 1987: 94). Saariaho reversed their respective functions so that timbre “[takes] the place of harmony as the progressive element in music” and thus creates musical form (Saariaho 1987:94). This is a process of auditory deception, where manipulating processes of ‘horizontal’ organisation (for example, the monophonic line of Laconisme de l’aile (“Terseness of the wing”), after Saint-John Perse) for flute (1982) which is subjected to electronic alteration) can produce an effect of polyphony; and changing the perception of ‘vertical’ organisation involving, for example, the fusion of different instrumental timbres, can create new sounds which function structurally rather than colouristically. This Saariaho called the ‘sound/noise axis’, where sound and noise act as a hierarchical substitution for consonance and dissonance. Using this system, harmony and timbre can be controlled along parallel lines, as shown by the following adaptation of Julian Anderson’s illustration of Saariaho’s ‘sound/noise axis’ (Figure 1; Anderson 1992: 617).
Figure 1: The sound/noise axis.
Within the sound/noise axis, ‘noise’ is a form of dissonance pushed to the extreme on a ‘scale’ of degrees of graininess or roughness of texture, while pure, ‘clean’ tone equates with consonance in the same way. This is best illustrated by a quotation from McAdams and Daniel Pressnitzer:
Roughness was originally defined by [Hermann von] Helmholtz [1821-1894] to provide a sensory basis for musical consonance. A basic feature of Western tonal harmony is to distinguish within the ensemble of possible intervals obtainable with the chromatic scale those which are considered consonant from those that are considered dissonant. This distinction is of course by no means rigid, as shown by the progressive shift from dissonance to consonance of some intervals throughout the history of music. However, as has been noted since Pythagoras, intervals made of simple integer ratios are situated at one extreme of the scale (consonant) whereas the more complex ratios are considered dissonant. Numerous theories have been proposed to account for this enigma, and Helmholtz provides one of them: as the ratio between two sounds involves more complex integers, more partials will be “mistuned” and create roughness. Since the dissonance of Western tonal intervals corresponds to their roughness, this attribute may well be proposed as a sensory basis upon which the complex rules of harmony were built. (McAdams and Pressnitzer 1997: 2).
Dissonance in music contributes to directed motion and the creation of tension and release: important form-building factors. The key word, though, is contributes; as a lone entity, roughness or a ‘dissonance’ of timbre cannot determine oppositions and direction in a piece of music.
In application, Saariaho’s sound/noise axis provided a poor organisational model, when compared to the tonal model that the composer found so stale and from which she was trying to move away. The practical limitation of applying an externally generated system was that it was not strong or variable enough to circumvent the hierarchical pitch ordering of tonality. However, when treated as one parameter among many, the sound/noise axis had many possibilities for the building of form and structure in a computer-assisted compositional medium. Therefore, further parameters were added to “enrich the network of dimensions”: harmony, rhythm and pitch range (Saariaho 1987: 97). When combined into this “multidimensional network”, these parameters possessed innate potential for providing oppositions, generating tensions and therefore creating perceptible form.
Saariaho recognised that musical form needs a sense of directed motion to have coherence. The opposing “condition of stasis” is “represented by a familiar and recognizable state” (Saariaho 1987: 104). “‘Stasis’ [itself] is represented by traditional instrumental techniques that form part of the harmony, whilst ‘extended’ techniques introduce tensions”. Within this traditional harmony and conventional techniques are further divisions into different textures, which Saariaho relates to modulation in tonality: the alteration or manipulation of stasis results in a strong sense of movement, which Saariaho felt was advanced further by the introduction of other parameters. She related this to melodic figuration in tonal music, which merges at points with recognised harmonic gestures. It is this cross-relationship that enables the generation of form and structure, as perceived by the listener. This idea of transition and transformation across parameters became a characteristic of her works up to the early 1990s.
According to Saariaho, each piece of hers has its own unique form, which contributes to the distinctiveness of a particular work. She states that, without exception, the form of a piece is worked out prior to its composition (Saariaho 2002a). In planning the form of a particular piece, she examines the forces for which she will be writing, the musical material to be used and the textures that will arise from the interaction of these elements, which themselves result in the form of the piece. For Saariaho, “the material and the form must be inseparable” (Saariaho 2002b). It is the distinctions and interrelations (the forms of opposition) among the musical matter which create the form of a work. In turn, the form brings out the central idea of the work (Saariaho quotes Wassily Kandinsky in her 1987 essay: “Form is the outer manifestation of inner meaning”). The interrelation of harmonic structures, timbral variations and repetitions or derivations of material from the solo line are the perceivable manifestations of the organic structure of the piece. Certain intervallic patterns and structures are made more prominent, and thus become crucial to the elaboration of the work.
Graal Théâtre
The points raised above primarily concern the development and contribution of timbre to musical form in the music of Kaija Saariaho, and the ways in which it may generate tensions and oppositions. These oppositions create time and movement, considered to be a primary feature of form-building perception. Having examined the evolution of these elements in her early works, at a time when Saariaho’s research and academic activities were at a peak in her career, some detailed examination of a more recent work is necessary, to find out if these principles of timbral organisation remain valid in her compositions. For this purpose, I chose to investigate the violin concerto Graal Théâtre (1994) for a variety of reasons: its chronological position, transitional status and a personal regard for the work.
A bar by bar analysis of the piece would not be consistent with the aims of this essay; rather, I identify the key points regarding the structural and formal construction of the work, with close reference to the score and appropriate musical examples in support of my assertions. The main form-building devices and techniques Saariaho uses in the work are established at the beginning of the piece, then these key devices apply throughout the rest of the whole work. Therefore, the primary focus is on the opening 135 bars. Any deviation from these techniques are identified and examined independently.
Graal Théâtre stands in Saariaho’s output as a transitional work by way of its position between her earlier works, based on texture, and the increasingly linear, melodic character of the works which followed the concerto. The title comes from a book of six plays of the same name by the French writer and mathematician Jacques Roubaud, written in 1977 in collaboration with fellow French author Florence Delay. The story, a reinterpretation of the Holy Grail, has little if any direct bearing on the work; rather, Saariaho was inspired by the way Roubaud daringly took “something so full of connotations and wrote it into his own language”, in which she saw an analogy to her own work on the traditional and historically loaded genre of the violin concerto (Saariaho 2002a). The title of Roubaud’s plays attracted Saariaho in its strange dichotomy of the ‘grail’ and the ‘theatre’. It holds various levels of significance for her; on one level is the dual expression of “the tension that I feel between the efforts of the composer when writing music and the theatrical aspect of a performance” and on another, according to Saariaho, is the strong theatricality and drama of a soloist both musically and physically when placed against an orchestra (Saariaho, www.chesternovello.com/work/8615/main.html).
The concerto uses a conventional symphony orchestra of average size (see Appendix B). All families of instruments are represented with particularly detailed focus on the augmented percussion section, whose variety of instruments, requiring four musicians, gives Saariaho many extra colouristic options. Saariaho comments on her enjoyment in writing for the orchestra; for the collection of real individuals, and for the range of sound possibilities: “It is an enormous luxury…to have such motivated people to play your music.” (Saariaho 2002b).
Saariaho notes that “When compared to my other music, Graal Théâtre is the exception in a long row of pieces in which I combine acoustic instruments with some kind of electronic extensions. Unlike these earlier works my starting point here was the delicate violin sound and its interaction with an orchestra.” The intention for the piece was to “really show the fragility and the tiny nuances possible in the violin sound.” (Saariaho 2002a). Her choice not to use live or pre-recorded electronics stemmed from problems that she encountered in the cello concerto Amers (1992). The composer says “I have found through experience that amplifying a solo instrument which is playing with the orchestra is problematic. With these two different spaces, it is really complicated to handle. So I wanted the violin to be as fragile as it can be.” (Saariaho 2002a). She intended to electronically manipulate the individual strings of the solo cello, but met with difficulty controlling the balance of extraneous noise picked up through the microphones used to amplify each string. Therefore in Graal Théâtre, in the absence of real-time electronic treatment, any sonic transformations are written into the score.
According to Saariaho, the starting point for actual musical material was the computer aided analysis she made of sounds provided by Kremer himself, from which the basis of the harmonic material was taken (Saariaho 2002a). However, Saariaho comments that the exercise with Kremer was difficult to put into practical use “because the spectrum of the violin is so high. Normally when you do this kind of thing [analysis] you take a low sound which has then a very vast amplitude.” She did, though, find their initial contact a worthwhile experience in terms of inspiration for the work: “I think it was maybe also a little bit of magic too, to captivate Gidon and his sound.” (Saariaho 2002a). The form of the piece corresponds to the specific qualities of the instruments used to create the sound material. This means that the character of the concerto, also applying to the concertos Aile du Songe for flute, strings, harp and percussion (2001), and Amers, directly relates to the characteristic properties of the sound of the main instrument.
Saariaho’s position on narratives and the low extra-musical significance of the titles of her works has been discussed, though I suggest a type of narrative content is present in the concerto. This is not in terms of the delineation of a ‘story’, or as a literary commentary, but of the dramatic progress of units in succession and the physical and spatial representation of soloist versus orchestra, that make its large-scale form audible. In the concerto, the solo violin acts as the ‘subject’, a protagonist, as it proceeds through an ever-altering context of changing orchestral environments; passive and reciprocal in the first movement (the orchestral material is mainly derived from the solo line and has little autonomy), increasingly independent and conflicting in the second. The identity of the violin part remains stable as its context changes, while within this stability are multiple identities defined by their internal characteristics (dolce, furioso; harmonics, bow noise) and by their position in relation to the orchestral material. This structure-building device, switching from one ‘narrative’ level to another while retaining a constant (the solo violin), means that the listener is always conscious of the work’s formal construction, while their engagement with the piece is also intensified. The presence of balance and internal tensions caused by contrasts makes the work intelligible. It is important at this point to investigate further the nature of the large-scale formal layout of Graal Théâtre, which should clarify the nature of contrasts and oppositions present in the work.
Tables 1a and 1b are representations of my view of the formal plan of the first and second movements (‘Delicato’ and ‘Impetuoso’ respectively) of Graal Théâtre. Within the table I set out the criteria by which I categorise each section, though I do not yet describe transitionary material between sections; changes from section to section are not as abrupt as they may appear. It can be seen that the plan is based upon changes of tempo, the identity of the solo violin line and instrumentation, with a brief description of each section’s internal structure. A more detailed verbal representation of section one follows the tables, to show how I have defined each division.
Table 1a: Formal plan of 1st movement Graal Théâtre.
Table 1b: Formal plan of 2nd movement Graal Théâtre.
As well as by what is present, the opening of Graal Théâtre is defined by the absence of the main body of the orchestra. It is understated texturally, harmonically and rhythmically, providing opposition to the dramatic contrasts of mood that follow. The piece opens with a single mp triangle stroke and the solo violin sul ponticello, freely undulating between the open A string and a harmonic A (harmonics being the purest tones on the instrument) from niente to mezzo piano. From the next bar, though, a variety of effects begin the degradation of this initial timbral ‘purity’: glissandi, variations in bow pressure and point of contact on the string, trills. The harmonic is subjected to a descending glissando which picks up other natural harmonics, pausing in bar four while oscillating between the open A string and a harmonic F sharp. The bow moves from sul ponticello to sul tasto to add further timbral change (Example 4a). Already in these first four bars, the listener is made aware of numerous subtle contrasts within the solo line.
The material is developed further: bar five introduces the crotales and further detail within the solo line, such as different pitched notes, trills and double stopping. The same bar also sees the introduction of a metronome marking (crotchet =~54), indicating the presence of a pulse, though the solo violin, while rhythmically constructed, remains free and rubato in nature. The solo violin line is precisely notated throughout, but has a deliberately contrived improvisatory feel which is offset by the superimposition of insistent rhythms in the percussion and later in the double bass; the intention here is not for the listener to perceive a metrical pulse in the solo violin.
From bar five, the solo material increases in energy by the addition of a wider range of faster moving pitches of smaller temporal values (Example 4b). At bar nine, the metronome marking increases to crotchet = 69 with the indication dolce, poco nervoso. The solo violin increases in activity again with semiquaver double stopping, while the harp enters with pitches that echo those of the violin (Example 4c). At bar seventeen, the crotales mark out the bars with a metrical pulse to accompany the rubato solo line. This further growth in activity leads to a piú agitato section where each bar of the violin line is of a varying length, and the compass and dynamic grow in each bar.
The timpani is added from bar twenty-three; as the violin rises in pitch, the timpani moves in descending contrary motion with sforzando glissandi. The timpani then remains on a B flat pedal while the violin reaches its peak of activity with a descending microtonal quintuplet passage, culminating with a trill A sharp in bar thirty-two (Example 4d).
The main point to note from the above commentary is the way Saariaho enumerates the elements that have most structural and formal importance from the outset of the work: contrasts of timbre and mood within the solo line, using harmonics and open strings to highlight ‘purity’ (or ‘sound’ on the sound/noise axis) as a prominent formal feature, the modality of the melody (which will later appear as harmonic material), and the dual nature of contrasts (which, on a larger scale, follows a plan of opposition perhaps implied by ‘delicato’ and ‘impetuoso’). Saariaho tends to prioritise specific elements of her material which are noteworthy from a formal point of view at the beginning of her works, then uses a variety of processes, for example through electronic manipulation, to alter and develop this material. This is illustrated throughout Graal Théâtre. The immediate presentation of structures within the piece by foregrounding certain material ensures that the nature of opposition is clear to the listener from the outset, thus aiding in the perception of the key form-building elements.
It becomes clear from Tables 1a and 1b that slower sections are characterised by more ‘sound’ material, usually a softer dynamic and less dense orchestral accompaniment, while faster speeds mean bow noise, increased volume and denser accompaniment. If tempo is directly related to dynamic, orchestral texture, sound/noise, then a graphical representation of the tempo changes in Graal Théâtre will give us a picture of the overall scheme of the work. (Figure 2). It can be seen that the work falls into three larger sections of roughly equal size over both movements. Though there are many contrasts between the movements, the mutual exchange of material and continuity between them suggests that they should be regarded as a whole when working out the overall formal plan of the piece.
Peaks in the graph represent high points of volume, speed and textural density—which are simultaneously peaks of tension—contrasted with relaxation of speed, repose, softer dynamics and a sense of conventional ‘release’. On a more generalised global scheme, the work has an ‘arch’ shape, also seen from Figure 2: another conventional technique for building unity into a composition. Though the starting material is transformed over the course of the work, Graal Théâtre essentially ends as it began, concluding the piece by resolving its tensions (Example 5).
Example 5: Opening and conclusion of Graal Théâtre.
(i) Bars 1-4
(ii) Bars 713-716
Saariaho makes sparing use of a regular pulse or formed metre in any of her music; therefore, its recurrent presence in Graal Théâtre suggests it must have a formal significance. The rubato nature of the solo violin line is underpinned by a clear metric pulse, usually in the lower strings or percussion, recurring at points throughout the work, for example at bars 219 to 234 or at bars 43-50 (Example 6). This lends the solo part an extra dimension of energy and direction, and a sense of movement through time. The tension between the freedom of the solo and the constraint of the orchestral parts, particularly in the ‘impetuoso’, establishes another opposition within the piece; at times the relationship between the orchestra and solo violin is confrontational (‘dissonant’), at times responsive and sympathetic (‘consonant’), particularly at the points in which the orchestral material is derived from the solo violin. Once again, another facet of the sound/noise dichotomy is in evidence.
Example 6: Metrical pulse in Graal Théâtre at bars 43-50.
The first movement of Graal Théâtre is composed of a chain of successive sections which tend to be self-contained, recurring in audible patterns and most often contrasting in varying degrees with immediately adjoining sections. The ordering of these sections reflects Saariaho’s interest in combining an overall, balance-producing and symmetrical structure with unexpected changes or shifts. Thus to unite the piece and imbue it with continuity, many points in the work are variations on or recurrences of musical ideas presented earlier. The given examples are from the solo violin; however, this applies between orchestral sections too (Examples 7a-7b).
Example 7a: Repetition of material in solo violin line.
(i) Bars 28-31
(ii) Bars 277-279
(iii) Bars 433-434
Example 7b: Solo violin bars.
(i) Bars 39-42
(ii) Bars 660-662
Temporal constructions are self-perpetuating (regenerative and derivative), resulting in an organic development. This occurs most often in the orchestral sections, which are reverberations or representations of fragments derived from the solo violin part (Example 8). To lessen regularity and increase contrasting variation, Saariaho disperses sections of non-recurring material within the more regular patterns. The lengths of sections vary widely and some end unexpectedly.
Example 8: Orchestral material shadowing solo violin line.
(i) Bars 85-88
(ii) Bars 103-105
(iii) Violin bar 205; flutes bar 209
After the volatile opening, the solo violin embarks upon an extended melodic passage marked espressivo, accompanied by more metrically insistent material in the harp and percussion sections. This striking melody, from bar 38, uses the same principal of repetition and addition to create the feeling of movement through time that Saariaho uses to generate unity in the opening. The melody is taken from bar 11 of Nocturne for solo violin (1994) (Example 9a). As well as via the computer-aided analysis of sounds, further material and many ideas for the concerto were provided by and retained from Nocturne. The piece is an exploration of some early ideas for Graal Théâtre, of the possible variety of acoustic techniques and nuances of sound available to Saariaho. Other material and ideas to be retained from Nocturne are its opening, centred around the harmonic A (Example 9b), and the undulation between the open G string and a harmonic F sharp which appears at specific points in both works (Example 9c; see Example 4b for this instance in Graal Théâtre.). Whenever this undulating figure occurs, the music reaches a point of repose or stability. Finally, the pitches in the quintuplet figure from bars 22 to 31 of the study become the basis of the modal harmony found in Graal Théâtre. In Nocturne this modality centres around the pitches D, C sharp, G and B flat, and is used for both melodic and harmonic material. While these pitches retain constructional value in Graal Théâtre, it is the intervallic structures that have more formal importance. Rather than be restricted by individual pitch association, Saariaho transposes and transforms the intervallic structures they create.
Example 9a: Solo material in Graal Théâtre and its origins in Nocturne.
(i) Solo violin in Graal Théâtre, bars 38-41
(ii) Nocturne, bars 11-12
Example 9b:
(i) Opening bars of Nocturne
(ii) Opening bars of Graal Théâtre
Example 9c
(i) Bars 24-28 of Nocturne
(ii) Bars 9-12 of Graal Théâtre, showing the use of intervallic structures derived from Nocturne
The section that follows uses the same principles as before in its elaboration of the form of the work. The melody extends and the solo continues to dominate from bar 59. The orchestral texture thickens around bar 89, which leads to a more forceful, aggressive section of music up to the meno mosso at bar 131.
From bar 135, a prominent dialogue commences between the solo violin and the first trumpet (Example 10a). The trumpet is the only orchestral instrument to be given such a principal role in the work. Using instruments as a homogeneous group in this way intentionally diminishes their individuality; only the solo violin and trumpet retain their individual character. Up to this point, the orchestral material is almost entirely derived from material found in the solo line, but the trumpet has a new, independent line that has a similar rubato character to that of the solo violin. This, given also the nature of the instrument’s timbral qualities, creates a strong contrast to the violin. Though the dialogue has potent dramatic energy, the trumpet functions in this auxiliary role as provider of further material for the orchestra, and as commentator on the behaviour of the solo violin. Though there are new ideas in the solo trumpet, the primary material upon which it is based is the prominent ascending intervallic structure taken from the solo violin that originated in Nocturne. The trumpet uses pitches C sharp and B, while the orchestral material from bar 188 onwards is based around B flat to A; this began in Graal Théâtre as the undulating D to C sharp in bar 7. The structure pervades the work and is a constant reference point for both melody and harmony (Example 10b).
Example 10a: Trumpet and violin dialogue.
Example 10b: Various occurrences of the primary intervallic structure in Graal Théâtre.
(i) Bars 139-145, trumpet 1
(ii) Bars 187-191, piano
(iii) Bars 196-197, solo violin
The second movement ‘Impetuoso’ retains the same form building concepts as the first movement. The form is elaborated through oppositions created by the solo violin working in opposition to the orchestra, and contrasts of sound and noise material. In line with the aforementioned principles of repetition and transformation, the mood of the second movement takes its impetus from the furioso bars 28 to 32 of the first movement (Example 11a). This adaptation and recontextualisation of material is a conventional and effective unifying device. The modal nature of the harmony is retained from the first movement and is similarly used for melodic and harmonic material; for example, the melody in the solo violin found from bar 620 onwards is derived from the first melody in the whole piece at bar 38. (Example 11b). This cross-referencing of material and repetition of pitch structures occurs at many points in the second movement, contributing to the unity of the piece through the balance of the arch structure of the work.
Example 11a: How the manner of the Impetuoso is taken from the first movement.
- Bars 28-31, solo violin
(ii) Bars 445-450, solo violin
Example 11b: Material in 2nd movement derived from final four bars of 1st movement.
(i) Last four bars of ‘Delicato’ (bars 441-444)
(ii) Bars 623-624
(iii) Bars 617-619
While the character of the solo violin line remains essentially the same, the more individual use of the orchestral instruments in the second movement means that the orchestra works less as a homogeneous group. Bars 472-475 are also the only time in the entire work that the whole orchestra is heard together. This is significant in that the orchestra attains much more independence from the violin solo in the second movement. Extended techniques occur more frequently; for example the woodwind quarter tones and the portamenti in the strings from around bar 591 to 615. Recalling Saariaho’s “stasis” comment from her 1987 essay, her orchestral writing in the first movement keeps the instruments together in their conventional groupings, with few extended techniques, while in the second, extended techniques are widely utilised and solo voices rise from the texture. Saariaho takes advantage of listener familiarity with the timbre of the orchestral instruments, so that the extended techniques found in the second movement have increased formal potential; the contrast between the character of the orchestral writing in the two movements is made obvious. In the absence of electronics, Saariaho exploits these generative sources of sound for their potential in building form.
Figure 3 is a bar graph to show the individual entries of instruments. From this, it can be seen how instruments are used in their traditionally associated groups with few orchestral solos in the first movement. In the second, the orchestra’s presence is significantly increased, particularly the prominence of the woodwinds. The structural importance of the brass is shown here, especially when the graphs are read in conjunction with Figure 2 above: the brass entries create a deeper, often louder, orchestral sound which relates to the large-scale structure depicted in Figure 2. The graph gives another perspective of the piece, showing how the ubiquitous solo violin works in opposition to the constantly evolving orchestral background.
The ‘familiar’ in terms of the sound/noise dichotomy is associated with consonance. In line with Smalley’s definition of the process of transformation, the base identity of the sounds in Graal Théâtre is established, so that when any transformation occurs it is easily recognisable as removed from but related to the base source. For example, the establishing of harmonics at the beginning of the work means that the main point of contrast for the ‘noisy’ material is clearly established. Traditional instrumental techniques represent stasis and repose by being comfortably familiar, while extended techniques bring tension to the work. These tensions are only resolved at the end of the work by a return to the ‘purity’ of the opening harmonics and the triangle stroke which began the piece, meaning the overall formal function of traditional and extended techniques only becomes fully transparent when the work concludes.
Elements need to be placed in their context as related to other elements for their formal significance to emerge, recalling the importance of context to Saariaho, acquired from her work in psychoacoustics: though the solo violin has a fundamental formal and structural function in Graal Théâtre, the alternation between conventional and extended techniques within the solo line, and the timbral contrasts these create, are insufficient to create movement or progression by themselves. The linearity of the violin part does not possess enough depth of texture within itself; rather, it is its linearity when placed in the context of its progression through altering orchestral soundscapes that creates movement.
This linearity and the juxtaposition of melody and larger harmonic texture is something new to Saariaho’s work, and it is no coincidence that the next work to be written after Graal Théâtre was the song cycle Château de l’Âme (1995), Saariaho’s first piece for voice and orchestra. Until then, her vocal writing was confined to a number of small scale works from the 1970s (Bruden and Jing) and one or two short works from the late 1980s, including From the Grammar of Dreams (1988) and Grammaire des Rêves (1988). The commission for Chateau de l’Âme had already been accepted by Saariaho before she began writing Graal Théâtre. The presence of the commission in her mind while she wrote the violin concerto meant Saariaho became more conscious about vocal writing and line, leaning away from timbral starting points for a work to something much more melodic: “The next big piece [after Graal Théâtre] was a vocal piece and my vocal writing has always been more linear…so it went in this direction because I wanted to test certain things with full orchestra.” (Saariaho 2002a).
The melodic character and linearity of the solo violin line, and the relative simplicity of the orchestral writing, particularly in the first movement, is directly linked to her forthcoming vocal pieces. In addition, there are many formal and textural similarities between the works; for example the recurrence of a metric pulse which underpins the linear, melismatic vocal line recalls the rubato character of the solo violin (Example 12). The distance between this and early works such as Verblendungen is now distinct. In Graal Théâtre and Chateau de l’Âme, the base identities of the instruments are exploited for their actual sounding properties, not for aural deception through their manipulation. Saariaho’s music of the mid-1990s was no longer about subverting expectation but about the expression of the delicate nuances and timbres of instruments; particularly the natural human voice.
Electronics were not abandoned by any means; the solo soprano song Lonh (“Far Away”, 1996), a prologue for the opera L’amour de loin (“Love from Afar”; 1999-2000) on a text by the medieval troubadour Jaufre Rudel, which uses modal melodies adapted from a manuscript of Rudel’s for its melodic and harmonic material, underpins the voice with a tape of sounds from nature in their natural and processed state. These processed sounds, including birds, the sea and the wind, recur in the opera for which Lonh was a study. L’amour de loin uses subtle recordings of natural sounds such as these with live imitation from the piano. By this point, the linear melodic element is firmly established, and the simplistic, non-intrusive orchestral writing remains of secondary importance to the vocal writing (Example 13).
Example 12: Vocal line underpinned by metrical pulse.
(i) Bars 113-119, 1st movement.
(ii) Bars 62-70, 4th movement
xample 13: Extract from Act V of L’amour de loin, showing lesser importance of orchestra, and florid, linear vocal writing.
The flute concerto Aile du Songe provides another perspective on the existence of the linear element which gained such prominence in Saariaho’s music. The piece retains Saariaho’s recent preoccupation with the melodic element as the flute line, recalling Graal Théâtre, works through an ever-changing relationship with the orchestra. However here, the emphasis is distinctly balanced between linearity and texture. The flute line is texturally multi-faceted, including singing and speaking into the instrument to create textures that hark as far back as Laconisme de l’aile from 1982, and the musical material of Tarkovsky’s poem in Nymphea from 1987. Texture is the objective of the instrumental accompaniment, from violin harmonics and bowing effects (sul ponticello and sul tasto) to subtle percussion colours and shifting harmonic textures that evoke Schoenberg’s Farben, above which the flute line sits (Example 14).
Example 14: Opening bars (1-8) of Aile du Songe, showing melodic line of flute and extended techniques creating wide varieties of timbres and textures.
It can be seen from the above examples that, far from forsaking timbre as a form building element in favour of a more conventional homophonic melody/harmony relationship in her works of the 1990s and beyond, Saariaho has incorporated further elements, including melody and linearity, into her vocabulary. In line with her comments regarding the sound/noise axis, she has thus enlarged her “network of dimensions.”
Comments
The use of opposition to generate and construct form has always been present in music and the arts. Saariaho does not appear to have a problem with these conventions being present in her work. Hers is a distinctly flexible approach, taking elements from a variety of styles and disciplines to fulfil her personal requirements. The creation of her own individual language is mainly owed to this freedom of movement.
Timbral organisation clearly continues to play a large part in Graal Théâtre as a formal principle. The sound/noise dialectic defines the relationship between entities, and thus their functions. For example, bow noise is equated with loud volume, intensity of sound, denser orchestral textures and is thus a replacement for dissonance on the sound/noise axis. Harmonics are purer in tone, softer in volume, and generally accompanied by slower tempi, which equals consonance on the axis. This provides an easily perceived and self-explanatory unity in the piece by creating the tensions requisite to generate form and unity. Being that the form is the material and vice versa, the listener experiences an organic unity directly from the internal properties of the work.
Thus, the ‘meaning’ of Graal Théâtre emanates from its form via the interrelation of elements in the work. Rather than being a one-to-one relationship between related concepts as found in Western tonal harmony (where ‘meaning’ has been created over time and assumes the listener possesses prior acquired knowledge of the ‘meaning’ of relationships between intervals, keys, related structures) the meaning of a work such as this emerges from the perception of larger relationships, and the final overall picture. Timbre as a conveyor of musical form relies upon culturally specific subjects in the same way that the form building properties of tonality are culturally acquired. The notion that timbre could carry form, and the subsequent research into this possibility has very particular sociological origins. If we take Saariaho’s work at IRCAM as an example: the work environment encompasses a culturally specific section of society: primarily modernist, avant garde, Western (American/European), mostly male, working around the Western perception of musical hierarchy with Western musical instruments. The works produced there are shaped by their culture.
Understanding Saariaho’s music relies upon the establishment of a context in which we can understand it, by exploiting culturally acquired meanings from another era. Any professions of formalism or of distance from possible social obligation, engaging in a composition purely for its own sake, are undermined by our sociological inability to separate her music from the Western, modernist, elitist, classical tradition within which her music is situated. Graal Théâtre, it could be said, has intrinsic social meaning encoded within itself; its tensions, oppositions, contrasts and the sound/noise hierarchy are all adapted from the inherent characteristics of traditional Western acquired notions of composition, meaning the work is therefore culturally mediated. The framework itself, that which enables the listener to attribute functional meaning to her music, is formed by, and relies upon, prior musical experience on the part of listener and composer alike.
Bibliography
- Primary sources
Score editions
Kaija Saariaho, Aile du Songe (London: Chester Music, 2001).
Amers (London: Chester Music, 1992).
Château de l’Âme (London: Chester Music, 1995).
Graal Théâtre, (London: Chester Music, 1995).
Laconisme de l’aile (Helsinki: Jasemusikki, 1983).
L’amour de loin (London: Chester Music, 2000).
Lichtbogen (Helsinki: Edition Wilhelm Hansen, 1985-88).
Nocturne (London: Chester Music, 1994).
Nymphea (Helsinki: Edition Wilhelm Hansen, 1987).
Petals (Helsinki: Edition Wilhelm Hansen, 1988).
…sah den Vögeln (Helsinki: Finnish Music Information Centre, 1982).
Verblendungen (Helsinki: Edition Wilhelm Hansen, 1984).
Arnold Schoenberg, Five Pieces for Orchestra, opus 16 (Frankfurt, London, New York: Peters Edition, 1950)
- Secondary sources
- Works cited
Anderson, Julian, 1992: ‘Seductive Solitary’, Musical Times, (December), pp.616-619.
Born, Georgina, 1995: ‘Rationalizing Culture; IRCAM, Boulez and the Institutionalization of the Musical Avant-Garde’ (Berkley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1995).
Grisey, Gérard, 1996: ‘Twentieth Century Music’, interview with David Bundler, www.angelfire.com/music2/davidbundler/grisey.html, 13 May 2002.
Hamilton, Andy, 2001: ‘Atom Smasher’, The Wire, Issue 213, pp. 24-27.
Johnson, Julian, 2001: ‘Spectral Music’, www.vivosvoco.com/bibliography.html, 25 August 2002.
McAdams, Stephen, 1999: ‘Perspectives on the Contribution of Timbre to Musical Structure’, Computer Music Journal vol. 23 no. 3, pp.85-102.
McAdams, Stephen and Pressnitzer, Daniel, 1999: ‘Acoustics, Psychoacoustics and Spectral Music’, Contemporary Music Review vol. 19 no.2, pp. 33-60.
McAdams, Stephen and Saariaho, Kaija, 1985: ‘Qualities and Functions of Musical Timbre’, Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference (Berkley: ICMC, 1986).
Niemenen, Risto, 1988: ‘Saariaho Gains New Ground’, Finnish Music Quarterly, volume 3, pp.61-63.
Roads, Curtis, 1986: ‘Symposium on Computer Music Composition’, Computer Music Journal, vol. 10 no.1, pp. 40-63.
Saariaho, Kaija, 1987: ‘Timbre and harmony: interpolations of timbral structures’, Contemporary Music Review (United Kingdom: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1987).
Saariaho, Kaija, 1999: www.chesternovello.com/work/8615/main.html, 28 April 2002.
Saariaho 2002a: Kaija Saariaho in interview with Jane Park, Royal Festival Hall, 19 May 2002.
Saariaho 2002b: Kaija Saariaho in pre-concert interview with Anthony Burton, Royal Festival Hall, 19 May 2002.
Smalley, Denis, 1993: 'Defining Transformations', Interface, volume 22 no. 4, pp. 279-300.
Whittall, Arnold 2000: Musical Composition in the Twentieth Century (USA: Oxford University Press, 1999).
- Works not cited
Beck, Stephen David, 1992: ‘Saariaho: Lichtbogen, Io, Stilleben’, Computer Music Journal, volume 16 no. 4, pp. 92-94.
Diamond, Beverley and Moisala, Pirkko, 2000: ‘Gender negotiation of the composer Kaija Saariaho in Finland: The woman composer as nomadic subject’, Music and Gender (USA: University of Indiana Press).
Ellison, Cori, 1999: ‘Uncovering Beauty in Ordinary Noise’, New York Times, 7 November.
Ford, Andrew, 1993: Composer to Composer (Australia: Allen/Unwin, 1993), pp.46-50.
Griffiths, Paul, 1978/1994: Modern Music—a concise history (revised edition) (Singapore: Thames and Hudson).
Kankaanpaa, Vesa, 1996: ‘Displaced Time: Transcontextual …Stilleben’, Organised Sound, volume 1 no. 2, pp. 87-92.
Karttunen, Antero, 1996: ‘The Music of our Time’ Finnish Music Quarterly, volume 4, pp. 31-63.
Korhonen, Kimmo, 1995: ‘Young Composers (Buffeted by the Winds of Change)’, Finnish Music Quarterly, volume 2, pp.16-18.
Mäkelä, Tomi, 1992: ‘Talks About Texture’, Finnish Music Quarterly, volume 3, pp.40-45.
Maycock, Robert, 1989: ‘Finnish Whispers’, Classical Music, p. 19.
McAdams, Stephen, 1999: ‘Perspectives on the Contribution of Timbre to Musical Structure’, Computer Music Journal volume 23 no.3, pp.85-102.
McAdams, Stephen and Pressnitzer, Daniel: 1997 ‘Influence of Phase Effects on Roughness Modelling’, Proceedings of the 1997 International Computer Music Conference, (France: ICMC) pp.31-34.
Niemenen, Risto, 1985: ‘At The Moment, The Computer and I Belong Together’,
Finnish Music Quarterly, volume 3-4, pp. 22-27.
1986: ‘A Portrait of Kaija Saariaho’, Nordic Sounds, pp.197-198.
1994: Kaija Saariaho: Compositeurs d’aujourd’hui, (France:
Editions IRCAM).
Otonkoski, Lauri, 1989: ‘The Grammar of Dreams’, Finnish Music Quarterly, volume 3, pp. 2-7.
Rickards, Guy, 1995: ‘Saariaho and other Finns’, Tempo no. 192, pp. 45- 47.
‘Review of Lichtbogen, Io, Stilleben’, Tempo no 174, pp.47-51.
Rowe, Robert, 1993: ‘Computer Music Currents’, Computer Music Journal, volume 17 no.1, pp. 75-77.
Ruohonaki, Jukka, 1994: ‘Switched on: Under the wing of YLE’, Finnish Music Quarterly, volume 10 no.1, pp. 9-15.
Sivuoja-Gunaratnam, Anne, 2000: ‘A Cornucopia of Kaija Saariaho’, Finnish Music Quarterly, volume 3-4, pp. 57-59.
Zöllner, Barbara Maria, 2000: ‘Ich arbeit für die Ohren’, Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, volume 161 no.5, pp. 60-62.
- Discography
Kaija Saariaho, Du cristal, …à la fumée, Nymphea (Jardin Secret III), Philharmonia Orchestra, Esa-Pekka Salonen; Kronos Quartet (Ondine ODE 804-2, 1993).
From the Grammar of Dreams, Avanti! Chamber Orchestra, Hannu Lintu (Ondine ODE 958-2, 2000).
Graal Théâtre (chamber version), Solar, Lichtbogen (Ondine ODE 997-2, 2002).
Graal Théâtre, Château de l’Âme, Amers, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Avanti! Chamber Orchestra (Sony Music 60817, 2001).
La Dame á la Licorne, Cloud Music (Petals, 1998).
Lonh, Près, NoaNoa, Six Japanese Gardens (Ondine, 1997).
Nocturne, Gidon Kremer (Philips, 2000).
Petals, Spins and Spells, Près, Anssi Karttunen (Petals, 1998).
Verblendungen, Jardin Secret I, Laconisme de l’aile, …sah den
Vögeln, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Esa-Pekka Salonen (BIS-LP 307, 1986).
Verblendungen, Lichtbogen, Io, Stilleben, Avanti! Chamber Orchestra, Jukka-Pekka Saraste and Esa-Pekka Salonen (Finlandia 374, 1989).
APPENDIX A
Biography
The Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho (b.1952) has lived and worked in Paris since 1982. She studied composition under Paavo Heininen at the Sibelius Academy and later at the Musikhochschule in Freiburg with Brian Ferneyhough and Klaus Huber, receiving her diploma there in 1983. In 1982 she attended courses in computer music at IRCAM in Paris. Since then, the computer has been an important element of her composing technique.
In 1986 she was awarded the Kranichsteiner Preis at the new music summer courses in Darmstadt, and in 1988 the Prix Italia, for her work Stilleben. In 1989 Stilleben and Io were awarded the Ars Electronica Prize. In 2000 she received both the Nordic Music Prize (for Lonh) and the Stoeger Award of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (in recognition of outstanding services to chamber music).
She achieved an international reputation with works such as Verblendungen (orchestra and tape, 1982-84), Lichtbogen for chamber ensemble and electronics (1985-96), Nymphea (1987) for string quartet and electronics, commissioned by the Lincoln Center for the Kronos Quartet, and two linked orchestral works Du cristal and ...à la fumée premiered in 1990 and 1991. Saariaho has also taken part in a number of multimedia productions such as the full-length ballet Maa (1991) and a pan-European collaborative project to produce a CD-ROM Prisma about her life and work.
Her recent works include a violin concerto, Graal Théâtre, for Gidon Kremer premiered at the 1995 BBC Proms and two pieces for Dawn Upshaw: an orchestral song cycle, Château de l'âme, premiered at the 1996 Salzburg Festival, and a solo song Lonh for soprano and electronics, premiered at the 1996 Wien Modern Festival. Lonh was awarded the Nordic Music Prize in 2000.
These last projects point to Kaija Saariaho's next major work: her first opera, L'amour de loin. A co-commission from the Salzburg Festival and Théâtre du Châtelet, L'amour de loin is based on La Vida brève by Jaufre Rudel, Prince of Blaye, one of the first great troubadours of the 12th century. The libretto was written by the French-Lebanese author Amin Maalouf. L'amour de loin was premiered on 15th August 2000 at the Salzburg Festival.
Largely adapted from http://www.schirmer.com/composers/saariaho/bio.html
APPENDIX B
For further detailed reference to the work environment at IRCAM see Born 1995.
Saariaho’s husband Jean-Baptiste Barrière (b.1958) worked at IRCAM from 1981 to 1998, beginning his career first as a researcher and co-writer of the two major computer assisted composition projects Formes and Chant, and was Director of the Musical Research department from 1984 to 1987.
Please refer to page 19 for Saariaho’s personal definition of musical form.
Chant and Formes are computer programs developed at IRCAM. Chant is used for sound synthesis, Formes for the control of structure and musical materials.
According to Georgina Born, Saariaho wrote Vers le blanc as a student via clandestine work carried out at IRCAM, unbeknown to the management there. Within a short time, after the piece won high acclaim at Darmstadt, Saariaho was working officially at IRCAM (see Born 1995: 114 for this coded reference to Saariaho.)
For further reference to approaches to musical form at IRCAM, see Born 1995: 195-196.
Days after composer Witold Lutoslawski’s death on 7 February 1994, the Avanti! Ensemble approached Saariaho to write a short piece in homage. Completed on 11 February 1994 and dedicated “To the memory of Witold Lutoslawski”, Nocturne emerged from this. John Storgårds premiered the piece five days later in Helsinki. With her ideas in a more organised state, Saariaho sent Nocturne to Kremer; however she found that “He had so many complaints and propositions for change that I decided I’d show him nothing before I finished the composition of the concerto because I already had a hard time in writing it…it started to stress me, so I listened a lot to his playing…I just wanted to be inspired by him, but not feel the limitations before I finished the piece.” (Saariaho 2002a).