Kaija Saariaho : Laterna Magica
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- Опубліковано 21 сер 2024
- Laterna Magica (The Magic Lantern) alludes to the autobiography of the same name by film director Ingmar Bergman. The book caught my eye after many years whilst I was tidying my bookcases in autumn 2007.
In time, as I read the book, the variation of musical motifs at different tempos emerged as one of the basic ideas behind the orchestral piece on which I was beginning to work. Symbolising this was the Laterna Magica, the first machine to create the illusion of a moving image: as the handle turns faster and faster, the individual images disappear and instead the eye sees continuous movement.
Musically speaking, different tempos underline different parameters: the rhythmic continuity is accentuated at relatively fast tempos, whereas delicate shades require more time and space for the ear to interpret and appreciate them.
While I was working with tempos, rhythms with different characters became a major part of the piece's identity: a fiery dance-rhythm inspired by flamenco, a shifting, asymmetrical rhythm provided by speech and an accelerating ostinato that ultimately loses its rhythmic character and becomes a texture.
In contrast to this, there emerged music without a clear rhythm or pulse. This material is dominated by strongly-sensed colourful planes and airy textures, such as the unified colour of six horns, which divides the orchestral phrases. This use of horns points to Bergman's film Cries and Whispers, in which the scenes are often changing through sequences of plain red colour.
When reading the autobiography I was also touched by the way Bergman described the different lights which his favourite photographer, Sven Nykvist, was able to capture with his camera. Part of the text found its way into the piece in German -- for the work was commissioned by the Berlin Philharmonic. The extract, in English, goes as follows:
Gentle, dangerous, dream-like, lively, dead, clear, hazy, hot, strong, naked, sudden, dark, spring-like, penetrating, pressing, direct, oblique, sensuous, overpowering, restricting, poisonous, pacifying, bright light. Light.
Masterpiece! She left us too soon ❤
Love how many of the comments on this video can basically be summed up with "this music is bad because I don't like it". What insightful and educated critique.
+Nikolai Valov On the other hand, there just isn't much to this piece, and it's very forgettable.
Matter of opinion. I think the same about most Mozart I hear, but it doesn't mean that other people can't find a lot to say about his music. Why should Sariaaho be any different?
I agree with your comment. I compose and while I think her orchestration is quite stellar with some nice use of now common extended techniques, the sum of its part makes it not that interesting to me. A very solid piece that will be played once in awhile and over time forgotten. Some say this is based on spectralism I say only superficially in how timbre superficially creates interest. However, the basis of this is really procedures of musical rhetoric found in Ravel, Stravinsky (non-serial) - with some lifting o sounds from Sacre, and a touch of late Tchaikovsky. Strangely she employs at times some procedures from minimalism to create ostinato but they dissipate and seem inconsequential to the enterity. But the overall feel is it makes a great film score for something from the 60's and that is about it. The main problem is the attempt to develop material ion the last half but it goes nowhere - I don't think this is intentional as say Lachenmann would do and at times quite successfully, I think it is she got more caught up[ on the beautiful orchestral colors at the expense of musical rhetoric.. What people forget is that comment on one work of a composer is NOT a comment on their entire oeuvre. No composer bats 1,000, never mind even 500. I don't listen to much of her music but I have heard better from her.
I would study the piece - but only for the outstanding orchestration and color.
Thanks for your thoughtful comments, that relate to my appreciation of her music. Do you happen to know her "Lumière et Pesanteur". I am suggested to go buy a concert ticket and listen the piece, but I'm hesitating. What would you say?
Wow! Next you might learn what subjective means. I think this is pretty cool. People have opinions you know. This seems to have way more likes than dislikes. Some people don't like same stuff as you. How is that so complicated?
R.I.P. Kaija Saariaho (14th Oct 1952 - 2nd June 2023)
Last week, I had the privilege of seeing and hearing this piece performed by the San Francisco Symphony. What a delight! I was on the edge of my seat waiting to hear what would come next. Traditional tonality will always be with us, and our ears will ever thirst for pieces based in the dominant-tonic resolutions that we find so comfortably familiar. We will also never have a lack of the structured system approach to the atonal. But this music - complex and textural - exists in it's own unique sonic world, while never forgetting the listener as it goes on its journey. I loved it. I felt engaged from beginning to end. Many folks - with new sounds, they are like children who scrunch their faces up when tasting something new. It's not bad or good. It's just unfamiliar, and sits in our ears in a new and unexpected way. I prefer to accept this music on its own terms rather than judge it against everything else I've heard. Great fun!
Having different musical tastes from yours does not make others "like children."
A
Actually,children are far more appreciative and open minded than many old farts.They don´t have prejudices,and really listen,in contrary to snoring bags who wait for a place in Beethoven 5 they remember(they also don´t listen to the Beethoven,but wait for the few bars they remember from the concerts before).reading the program notes instead of focusing the required full attention on listening.....I played in a rehearsal in my orchestra open to pre school kids many years ago .We rehearsed Beethoven 7 and Webern 5 pieces op.10...After 30 minutes,the kids were to vote what they wanted to hear , played without interruptions....the last mvt.of Beethoven 7 or the rather short sequence of the 5 Webern pieces....More than 80%voted for the Webern!....The music immmediately evoked pictures in their minds....the kids explained,a passage sounded like a monster lurking behind a tree,or another the first raindrops when a thunderstorm is about to begin.......Children are the hope for the future!They are open to anything!
@@libelle176 Thanks for this lovely story
@@acr08807 not what was at all stated or implied
kaija was one divine visitor to this world
Kaija is a brilliant composer. You have to study the piece more formally to appreciate what she is trying to to communicate here. Saariaho uses a technique called "spectralism," which is very cerebral. Spectralism has drawn her away from serialism (the latter of which came out of first and second Viennese school after WW I and the former out of music concrete and WWII). While there is brilliant orchestration, there is also form and emotion! This woman was born at the the time WWII ended in Finland, so there is a strong historic and cultural aspect to her music.
... out of music concrete
What does it mean?
hyperborean72 Musique Concrete is a technique which was popular between the 1940's-60's (If I remember correctly). It uses recorded sounds (instrumental or other) as raw material, which are assembled into a composition, and the sounds are usually distorted or modified.
And my question is 'What is trying to comunicating to us this piece?
I really heard thounsands of times and for me it's a very complicated to know what she is saying to us and I think that this piece its very poetical.
PLEASE CAN SOMEONE WOULD ANSWER ME ?
It's probably impossible to put it into words. She uses music not speech.
Serialism was a Webern-oriented break by composers after the Second World War. Spectralism was a movement that first emerged in the 1970s, when computer sound synthesis was well advanced. Saariaho transfers this experience to the orchestra here, which is why it sometimes sounds electronic, and that is actually an art in itself.
Very impressive. While I think there is something to be said for people's criticism that the piece doesn't totally "hang together" as a unified whole, still the variety of expressive new sounds and the way they relate to each other, one to the next, is very satisfying. I will be searching for more music by Kaija Saariaho.
Listening to this for the first time after hearing of her passing - I am punching myself for not familiarizing nyself with her body of work earlier. Her understanding of texture and timbre was truly second-to-none. This was an entrancing piece that I will be sure to revisit.
Wonderful performance of a spectacular piece! Saariaho’s orchestration is second to none! What vision! Brava!!!
Gorgeous performance by an orchestra filled with outstanding musicians. Love it.
We love this. It's on our regular warehouse playlist for when we have mountains of work to do.
I'm discovering Kaija Saariaho's music. I have been listening to several of her works and I'm very impressed! It seems to me that this woman is a major composer of our time.
I fully agree with you. She studied in depth in IRCAM, has close links with he so-called "spectral school" without being formally included in that school. She has creativity enough to write several convincing operas, which is not an easy task at all when using contemporary language.
Absolutely a wonderful and mysterious piece, Kaija is an excellent composer!
First piece of music I've listened to by Kaija and I was a fool for waiting so long.
Excellent orchestration! Some comments criticize the piece's form and development, but on a first listening, it works for me. I think I'll listen to more of Kaija's music, before returning to this piece.
Excelente composición sugestiva, delicada y profunda con una manera muy fina y minuciosa de trabajar la orquestación. Una de las grandes Saariaho!!
Thank you! Really liked this piece. POWER! Go Kaija Saariaho. Go Finland! /A swede :)
This reminds me of the music used in those 1970's detective shows, when the detective is sneaking into a suspects home looking for clues. Particularly I keep thinking of the show "Mannix."
Fantastic ! Thank you very much for sharing!
Fantastic master piece,stunningly played
She's brilliant.
Fantastic!!!!!!!!!!!
This is so very emotional. Excellent.
Music starts at 3:07
John Cage's 4'33 at 25:43
Thanks
what is it before?
Despite all the negative comments, I really enjoyed this and will come back to hear it again. There is a luminosity about much of it that reminds me of Colin Matthews and Robin Holloway. Beautifully orchestrated, some original ideas and an aural adventure.
I love you Kaija.
Since a long time...
wow esto es justo lo que buscaba para pasar mi tarde del sabado gracias!!!
Strong music and it had a great impression on me. I liked also the presence of keabords - sound of piano and celesta mixed to other instruments brought rich colors. Musicians whispering made me feel paralyzed. I couldn’t stop leastening until the end and will leasten again and again. The composer knows perfectly how orchestrate and all the effects are very well planned.
employ good speakers, then you will find the charm of this music
BBC Philharmonic orchestra.
Conductor: Juanjo Mena
Magic indeed!
Wonderful!
stunning
masterpiece!
Kaija Saariaho modern genius
On a second listen to this, I was much more alert to its shimmering sonic spectra. Here the sheer sound makes the form -- as valid as forming music around keys or melodies.
All composers are spectralists. Some are just more conscious and direct about it.
Magnificant! At the first accord, the sound with the picture of the bald percussionist scared me off terribly :D.
Love these extensive introductory notes, especially if in the end, they completely ignore the most vital information of it all - who the hell plays the bloody music ! Thank you for neglecting the musicians totally ! I am sure they feel honoured and appreciated. If you listen very closely, they are briefly mentioned when the music starts, why can they not be clearly stated in the above extensive notes ?
It is more harder, than you think, to write a music like this well and this piece is fantastic. I have performed this kind of music, it really was fun to play, and if you are capable to understand, it is also amusing to listen to.
Superb!
Tässä orkesterissa soittaa näköjään Kriikun Kari ja opiskeluajoilta tuttu oboisti Päivi Kärkäs, muita tuttuja en vielä bonganut
It is art music, even if it is depressed, dissonant, lengthy and not very rhythmical music ... but it's at least interesting, colorful, impressionistic with lots of expressive subtleties .... art reflects our time...where they want some current styles from pop to primitive minimalism.
Awesome!
Noticing several harmonic similarities to many John Adams compositions, lovely!
Both great composers!
I liked the feeling of this piece. Not as radical as I expected, based on the comments. So much coughing though.
Right? I have no idea why there is SOoooo much coughing. Gross!
Magical indeed
I can’t wait to see this live😍
DSO?
If you don't know what you're talking about, please refrain from commenting.
What a bizarre idea!
It has a certain Scooby Doo-like quality to it.
when people like you will begin to open their ears and minds?
"Hi there, glad you could stick around. I'd like to introduce Nosferatu on Tubular Bells."
😂😂😂😂
Love from Turkey
This is a magical work I love tonal music with melody as well This is a fine piece with excellent composition skills Her old teacher Brian Ferryhough simply does not do it for me
Pena por el fallecimiento de Saariaho. Se fue una de las más grandes de nuestro tiempo. Qué en paz descanse.
real
We still listen to Palestrina, Bach and Mozart, so why not this?
I find it funny that the moderator seems to assume that a contemporary composer like Saariaho would dislike an older master like Sibelius (although Sibelius is of course relatively modern).
+Pletzmutz Nah. Sibelius is considered a Romantic. And that's what he was, through and through.
I don't think that was his point. Sibelius remains a towering figure in Finnish culture. I think the moderator was suggesting that modern Finnish composers might resent having their works presented against the backdrop of a familiar Sibelius symphony, and might rather have their work presented on its own terms.
"although Sibelius is of course relatively modern"
-
And Finnish!
If I remember correctly, Fafner888 goes around UA-cam and basically copy and pastes this same exact comment on pretty much any performance of contemporary music. I know I've read it before on several other videos; same exact wording.
Sounds like music from Lost in Space .Nostalgic retro SF.
Reading the comments made me think this piece would be a lot more... offensive? Nothing about it is too crazy or out there to me. Some interesting sounds
paul amrod
vor 1 Sekunde
I will be meeting this week with the wonderful Finnish conductor Ari Rasilainen. We will be discussing bringing out the music of Einojuhani Rautavaara
and this next generation genius Miss Kaiija Saariaho during a Alternative Music Festival named "Music of the Newer Times". This music will primarily exhibit harmonical music from the 20th through into the 21st century.I would like to show this modern music as an alterative movement which is also underway. The roots of Russian Futuristic into Third Stream and a less static approach we will offer with this exiting revolutionary music.
EinojuhaniRautavaara1950
Reminds me of Atom Heart Mother by Pink Floyd
love the wishpers
music starts at 3:05
The music starts at 3:05.
Nella prima parte sento aleggiare lo spirito benevolo di Scriabin.L'esecuzione potrebbe essere accompagnata da giochi di luce.....
18:24 Sounds more like an orchestra being tuned than an actually piece of music.
You’re tone deaf
For me one of most exciting parts of concerts is tuning so i don't see any problem.
This is GOOD and by a woman composer. Is it me or are we getting really great composers at this time? Listen to Arvo Part, a still living Estonian. He's amazing.
RIP
I generally really enjoy this genre of music. This piece is beautifully orchestrated but doesn't inspire me to listen again. I find her violin concerto (watch?v=dOSyRzLbyQ8) much more interesting and substantial. Her "Circle Map" also has some really good stuff in it. I imagine a knowledgeable musician could teach me to understand this piece and find it interesting academically but as something to listen to it sounds like randomly assembled, well-crafted fluff, employing numerous 20th Century music cliches. (I'm sure it is NOT randomly assembled - IRCAM composers tend to have involved, highly intellectual explanations of the construction of their music - but to my ears it might as well be.) Her other music is worth checking out.
Ecstasy.
But will it be played a hundred years from now, or will it go the way of Webern? Of course Sibelius is still with us, so maybe I'm wrong.
You may say i'm stucked in the past, but until now, i still can not enjoy contemporary music. Well, i understand that this work is brilliantly orchestrated, but i still can not enjoy contemporary music.
Я тоже. Как приключение да, но удовольствия, как от привычной классической музыки- расслабления и сопереживания, увы, нету. Не сочувствую. Удивляюсь и напрягаюсь только. Хотя… при первом прослушивании Вагнера, Шрёдера- испытала нечто похожее. Послушаю ее произведения ещё.
How come Kaija didn't killed it as OST composer? Did she focused on classic?
Reminds me of the late Frank Zappa.
I'd say as experimental as it is, the criticisms are still valid. It is a bit too dissonant and a bit too free. I'd love to hear an expert's thoughts on this, as I don't have any knowledge on music. Certaintly has it's moments though, and it's a very interesting piece.
a nice connection to erki sven tuur. i disagree with nikolai. it's a piece about suspension - and quite complex.
"In what way??"
#1
Green lantern
you can skip to 3:04 for the music itself
There is no music in contemporary "music". Just noise everyone is expected to be excited about, even though everyone knows that cannot last.
Teos kuvailee kaiketi sitä, kun karhu söi puolet myrkkymarjoista ja nyt hiipii siellä, eikä linnutkaan uskalla laulaa metsän kuninkaan painostavan asenteen vuoksi.
Penso che questo brano non sia tra i migliori di Kaija, anche se è scritto con grande maestria e sapienza costruttiva. Purtroppo per la grande orchestra l'indifferenziato gioca brutti scherzi ai compositori, anche a quelli che hanno le migliori intenzioni.
This is so bad - did not expect this from this wonderful composer!
This is pretty good... thoughtful, well orchestrated. Like any thoughtful music though it deserves both praise and criticism. Others praise, I'll be the critic. This music assumes that the best music is derived from European academic conservatory tradition. That aesthetic that served royalty, and still serves a sort of royalty of well heeled faux music fans who wrongly think orchestral music is automatically the "best music." It ignores what is probably the best thing that's ever happened to music. World Music... the first being the clash of African and European resulting in Jazz. At this point composers can listen to and steal from the best of all musics world wide and that's the greatest thing that's happened in 100 years of music. Brahms probably never heard a gamelan. University derived music is really only thought of as the pinnacle by a small sliver of people. I would contend that those who know the most about music, those who should be our REAL music critics are record collectors with tens of thousands of records. They do like some European academic music, but by in large there are other areas far more interesting and forward looking. Academia is now mostly inbred and cronyistic. Academic jobs are highly prized because they're lucrative and easy and well funded by people who don't go see underground rock or jazz or other forms of advanced compositional music. In fact from my observation even the best music universities have become moribund and boring and haven't turned out much that is awe inspiring. Personally I am and always have been a champion of great music that deserves wider attention, rarely in what I perceive as the academic European tradition since serialism bombed and swing rose.
Who is the conductor?
I managed to google. Juanjo Mena apparently.
Nobody will believe this comment from a 75 yo Hendix fan, but, er, WOW!¬
Just my opinion, nothing new and not a memorable piece. Gloomy as everything one needs to endure in this age. Funny, it does not have one ounce of light this lantern.
I like this work, but what it fails to do that would set it aside from other recently composed works played at the Proms, is to refrain from such extensive writing for the percussion department. It has led to most modern works all sounding the same.
I think we all know what a wood block sounds like or a vibraphone. Today's composers rely so much on percussion instruments to "colour" their compositions, they forget about the many other dimensions that are still available within the orchestra.
Sadly Saariaho falls, like many many others, into the trap. But even so, the results here are above average.
Sorry sir, she should have ask for your guidance on orchestration and timbre. Such a shame that she did not!
@@pardaq24 Ha Ha. I'm glad she didn't as I'm a failed composer. But even failed composers can have opinions can't they?
22:09
When dissonance is used for special effects, or to create a "mood", instead of to present a paradox which is then resolved through tonal counterpoint -- dissonance is robbed of its potency.
i can't imagine thinking that this is all "dissonance," an amorphous historical concept, can ever be: akin to the trope of comic relief in a film that pulls things back whenever it gets too serious. tonal music is great, but i'm so very happy to step outside its logics and enjoy other ways of creating potency through pure timbre, without the distraction of needing something to resolve every time those 7ths get a little too dissonant!
Before thundering forth with a negative opinion try learning something about the composer’s work so you don’t just look like an opinionated ass who thinks he understands music like an expert. Saariaho is one of the most innovative, well respected and interesting contemporary composers around. Saying ‘I don’t like it’ is not an informed criticism and mere opinion is not interesting.
Простите, пожалуйста,но эти сочетания звуков невозможно слушать 😢Это диссонанс для слуха и организма. Разве что для описания цикла разрушения.
Не имею намерений обидеть автора и всех,кому нравится её творчество, однако, следует признать, что роль женщины ,как композитора в мировой истории,- роль Музы. И мужчины, вдохновленные Музой творили бессмертный ые великолепные музыкальные шедевры.❤
К Элизе, Серенаду, Вальсы и Оперы и так далее !😊
Выдающихся Женщин композиторов, по факту, практически нет. Видимо прав был немецкий композитор, который говорил:" скорее мужчина родит ребенка,чем женщина напишет шедевральную музыку 😊
У женщин огромное множество достоинств и способностей, поэтому до музыки руки не доходят 😅
Ругать меня не нужно 😊, всех женщин и мужчин считаю равноправными и талантливыми.😊❤
I find this music so uninteresting. It sounds like so many other 'modernist' pieces and lacks individuality. It sounds like a huge collection of effects and lacks any memorable moments. I can't understand all the hype about Saariaho.
I agree with you completely. There is lots of great music out there including lots of modernist music (mainly earlier and also Shostakovich, Britten, Reich, Glass, Pärt etc.) but Kailja Saariaho's music is simply bland. I think it's more a cultural thing rather than people enjoying things. It's simply seen as a good thing to say the music is good because it implies some kind of intellectual understanding of it but in reality I doubt more than a rare few people actually enjoy the music. Sure, I listen to highly modernist music sometimes too but I do it more out of curiosity, maybe a bit capriciousness but I do understand the music doesn't sound good when it doesn't sound good if you know what I mean. For instance I check the video with John Cage's performance of Water Walk but other than the very oddness of the "music" it simply isn't good music. It isn't as good as something written by Dufay, Palestrina, the Bachs, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Satie, Stravinsky, Shostakovich or Reich for instance. Water Walk doesn't really hold any aesthetic value compared with the pieces of those composers I just mentioned.
Rickard Dahl what an absolutely ridiculous comment.
helmut733
And you didn't make any argument explaining to me why it's an absolutely ridiculous comment. So, I will just dismiss your comment, at least for now.
Rickard Dahl Your post was longer, but didn't exactly provide much meat to the discussion either. You listed a bunch of composers you like and asserted wild, unfounded hypotheses on how Saariho (and her peers) have gained acclaim, all along relying on phrases like "I do understand music doesn't sound good when it doesn't sound good" and "doesn't really hold any aesthetic value."
There are few arguments more aggravating than the accusation that people who say they enjoy {insert highly-acclaimed art work here} are only saying they enjoy it to sound smart, and all art worlds are rife with this argument. Hell, I'd be surprised if you've survived a whole lifetime of appreciating classical music without running into someone accusing you of only liking Beethoven as some sort of intellectual self-fellation. It is profoundly difficult to express to someone why you like a piece; it's difficult enough to explain how the mechanics of the piece work in a way that have a lasting effect on you, and far more difficult when these arguments fall short because you're accused of insincerity, so then have to actually explain the lasting effect itself in a way that's concrete enough to resonate with your skeptical counterpart. I would love to hear you try to convince an early 20th century skeptic that you get a sincere pleasure from listening to Stravisnky's music, for example.
I should probably clarify that I have only recently come across Saariaho; I'm not so sure I have a large litany of sufficiently modernist pieces that I get extreme pleasure listening to (though there are at least a few that I absolutely adore); and you happened to list several composers that I do prefer over several more modernist composers that I've dabbled in. But unlike you, I'm not so arrogant to think that my own lack of appreciation of a piece automatically means that it's rubbish and that any fans of it are not only wrong for appreciating it, but are actually faking their pleasure to gain some sophistic accolades.
@@Rickeeey1 What you list as "modernist music" is often boring and mass-produced. Any music that is not just meant to be entertaining involves the intellect. That's why I don't understand the contrast you construct between intellectual and enjoyable. Anything that should only be enjoyed is ultimately useless from an anthropological point of view, because people have a cerebrum with which they also process their acoustic impressions. And only here can we speak of aesthetics, because aesthetics includes judgments and well-founded evaluations.
Bouillie de sons non harmonieux!
perseestä
kammottavaa
Please read some of Music History and Aesthetics, before you spit your "insightful" views of what's art and what's not.
I just dont like pieces that sound like anyone can write. It is just not fun to play or listen to. Simple as that.
exactly. sounds like a soundtrack to a "confused hero" scene from a middle budget hollywood movie
Very noisy "music" !
This is very discordant music. a distasteful cacophony
Are you on mission to hate Saariaho?
If you don't like her music then just don't listen to it