Author Archives: Ilkka Oramo

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About Ilkka Oramo

Professor of Music Theory, emeritus

Jean Sibelius: Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 43 (1901–02)

Posted on 10/01/2007 by Ilkka Oramo

Composed: 1901–1902 Length: c. 43 minutes Orchestration: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, and strings In March 1900, a couple of months before the first European concert tour of the … Continue reading →

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Jean Sibelius: Symphony No. 1 in E minor, Op. 39 (1899/1900)

Posted on 10/01/2007 by Ilkka Oramo

Composed: 1899–1900 Length: c. 40 minutes Orchestration: 2 flutes (both = piccolo), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (bass drum, cymbals, triangle), harp, and strings Actually, Sibelius’s first symphony is Kullervo, … Continue reading →

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Sibelius, Bartók, and the “Anxiety of Influence” in Post World War II Finnish Music

Posted on 03/26/2006 by Ilkka Oramo

1. In his memoirs, Yehudi Menuhin tells about a meeting with Sibelius in the early 1950s. They were discussing music, and suddenly Sibelius asked him who, in his opinion, was the greatest composer of the twentieth century. Thus challenged by … Continue reading →

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‘Chaconne principle’ and form in the music of Magnus Lindberg

Posted on 08/12/2004 by Ilkka Oramo

ABSTRACT: In the mid-1980s, Magnus Lindberg began to use pitch-class set theory in designing the harmonic reservoir of his compositions. In UR (1986), the pool consists of twelve symmetrical 12-note chords made of a hexachord and its transposed inversion. The … Continue reading →

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Sub umbra Sibelii: Sibelius and his successors

Posted on 08/01/2004 by Ilkka Oramo

It is difficult to establish who was the first to mention ‘Sibelius’s shadow.’ The idea pops up in the 1920s at the latest. In an essay on ‘the youngest Finnish music’ from 1928, the composer Ernest Pingoud (1887–1942) refers to … Continue reading →

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Magnus Lindberg: Mano a mano (2004)

Posted on 08/01/2004 by Ilkka Oramo

Mano a mano ist Lindbergs erstes Stück für Gitarre solo. Das Instrument ist ihm aber nicht ganz unbekannt, denn er setzte es in verschienenen Kammermusikwerken wie Linea d’ombra für Flöte, Altsaxophon (oder Klarinette), Gitarre und Schlagzeug (1981), Decorrente für Klarinette, … Continue reading →

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Sibelius as a Problem in Musical Historiography      

Posted on 12/01/2003 by Ilkka Oramo

“For critics incapable of making aesthetic judgments without first establishing a figure’s historical ‘import’, these composers [Sibelius and Busoni] fell into an aesthetic no man’s land by failing to conform to historiographical formulae” (Dahlhaus 1989: 367). Carl Dahlhaus’s statement describes … Continue reading →

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Armas Launis, Magnus Lindberg et la rencontre de l’autre

Posted on 09/01/2003 by Ilkka Oramo

1. Il peut paraître étrange de parler de la musique de Magnus Lindberg dans un colloque dédié à l’œuvre d’Armas Launis, même si Launis, lui-même, s’appelait Lindberg jusqu’à l’an 1900. Le seul lien entre ces deux musiciens finlandais semble être … Continue reading →

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Salonen, Esa-Pekka

Posted on 11/27/2002 by Ilkka Oramo

Published in print: 20 January 2001, Published online: 2001; updated, 28 February 2002; updated works list, 27 November 2002 (b Helsinki, June 30, 1958). Finnish conductor and composer. He entered the Sibelius Academy as a horn student of Fransman in 1973, graduating in 1977. That year he founded the avant-garde … Continue reading →

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Esa‑Pekka Salonen

Posted on 09/01/2002 by Ilkka Oramo

Esa‑Pekka Salonen’s music may be roughly divided into three periods. When studying composition with Rautavaara at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki in the late 1970s he wrote smoothly neo‑Romantic chamber music with expressive melodic phrases and tonal harmony, such as … Continue reading →

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