Erkki Aaltonen

Erkki Aaltonen was among Finland’s most initial composers, adopting contemporary methods into his composing while helping the authentic and moving expressive characteristics of his country’s traditional music. From 1929 to 1939, Aaltonen was students in the Sibelius Academy where he was instructed in the violin, piano, and body organ. He received personal instruction in structure from 1930 – 1940 with Väinö Raition and experienced two semesters with Selim Palmgren in 1940. He published five string quartets during this time period in the Classical and Passionate tradition and attemptedto compose a symphony in 1935. Aaltonen’s real Symphony No. 1 was finished in 1938, later on to be modified in 1947. This function still had features of that which was known as the National Passionate design, which as its name shows, bypassed modern trends to come back to tonal and occasionally programmatic moods. Although Aaltonen do incorporate some modernism (such as for example advanced chromaticism and untimately, dodecaphony) into his items, it was mainly this nationalist types of structure that created the underlying soul of his life’s function. From 1935 until 1945, Aaltonen was used like a violinist in the Helsinki Theater Orchestra and in the Finnish Radio Orchestra (1943 – 1944). He was a violist in the Helsinki City Hall Orchestra (1945 – 1947) while learning orchestral performing. Aaltonen became the conductor in the Sibelius Academy after moving his exam in 1947. Another year noticed the creation of Aaltonen’s Piano Concerto No. 1 and in 1949, he completed what’s his best-known & most questionable function, the Symphony No. 2 — Hiroshima, produced in response compared to that tragedy, also to the growing postwar advancement of nuclear arsenals. It really is dramatic and brilliantly contrapuntal but, regarding the controversy over its “system,” the composer says: “The thoughts behind the Hiroshima symphony are severe. It isn’t created against anyone, it really is written for mankind. It is most likely as programmatic as the timpani blow in (Haydn’s) Paukenschlag symphony.” This function was performed double in Hiroshima, aswell such as Prague, Bucarest, Cracow, Warsaw, and Tallinn. From 1956 through 1963, Aaltonen led the Kullervo Choir. He executed the Helsinki Chamber GROUP from 1957 to 1962, the Polytechnical Orchestra from 1958 to1960, as well as the Lohjan Orchestra from 1964 until 1966. During this time period, Aaltonen had written his Symphony No. 3, the eclectic Symphony No. 4 (1959) which embodies an array of changing moods, and Symphony No. 5 (1964). He also developed the Piano Concerto No. 2 (1954), aswell as the ballets Kimmon kosto (Kimmo’s revenge, 1958) and Nummisuutarit (Cobblers for the Heath, 1963). The extremely dodecaphonic Violin Concerto of 1966 was finished as Aaltonen became the conductor of Kemin Hall (1966 – 1973) and shortly recognized the post of movie director on the Kemin Academy of Music, where he continued to be from 1967 until 1973.