4. Meetings Between Authors and Composers
Fri, June 14th at 12
Central Library Oodi, Maijansali Hall
Author Sirpa Kähkönen and nonfiction author and documentarian Pekka Hako discuss their work.
Aulis Sallinen is unable to attend due to illness. In his place, Pekka Hako will join the discussion.
Music Aulis Sallinen (*1935): String Quartet No. 5 Op.54 ‘Pieces of Mosaic’ (1983)
Sallinen’s String Quartet No. 5 was completed in 1983 on the initiative of the Helsinki Festival, the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival and the celebrated American ensemble, the Kronos Quartet, who duly arrived in Kuhmo in the summer of 1984 to give the work its first performance. The name “Pieces of Mosaic” points towards the quartet’s unusual structure. The work is made up of 16 small sections or ‘pieces’, between which there are sometimes close links, sometimes no connections whatsoever, The composer has himself commented that the quartet has exactly the sort of form that the modern world deserves. As Sallinen has pondered on the disintegrating world around him, so his quartet has shattered into small pieces. It is worth mentioning that the idea of mosaics has run on — admittedly in a different form — into Sallinen’s 5th Symphony composed a few years later, entitled “Washington Mosaics”. In both quartet and symphony there are signs of the composer’s moving around to distinctly new stylistic directions.
Text: Kimmo Korhonen, 1990 (Helsinki Festival), translated by Susan Sinisalo
The event is in Finnish.
FREE ADMISSION
Photos: Maarit Kytöharju, Jonne Räsänen/ Otava 2019