Veteran musician takes offence at concert organised in his honour

Lasse Mårtenson also piqued at interpretations on new tribute album

Lasse Mårtenson

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Musician and composer Lasse Mårtenson does not approve of the Mårtenson Remix concert in Helsinki's Huvila Festival Tent scheduled for Friday night. The sold-out concert is set to launch a series of events in the tent, which is the main concert venue for the upcoming Helsinki Festival.
      The Helsinki Festival (18.8.-3.9.) is the largest and most diverse annual happening in the Finnish cultural calendar.
      In the concert, Finnish musicians from the younger generation will perform renderings of Lasse Mårtenson's own compositions, as well as some international tunes made famous in Finland by Mårtenson.
      Mårtenson says he also disapproves of the Kaikki paitsi Mårtenson on turhaa (Everything but Mårtenson is Pointless) tribute album, which has been published in anticipation of the concert. The new arrangements of the Mårtenson songs are by the album's producer Jukka Hakoköngäs and the band is assembled around the duo Nieminen & Litmanen.
      The public has had no qualms about the CD: at the moment, it is number eight on the official Finnish album list.
     
The concert and the album were meant as an accolade to the 71-year-old Mårtenson, whom many of the artists involved consider their spiritual father.
      Mårtenson, in turn, sees the project as anything but an hommage.
      "To me it is closer to an insult. The whole project has got out of hand. Things have progressed without my consent. My identity and my artistic image have been outrageously exploited", the veteran musician protests.
      In Mårtenson's view, the new arrangements of his songs have been put together without any kind of melody or text analysis of the originals. "I do not want to blame the artists, though. It is not their fault that they have got into this."
     
The album's executive producer Timo Kuoppamäki from EMI Finland is surprised by the turn of events. According to him, permission for the whole project was requested and received from the artist himself.
      Kuoppamäki also recalls having discussions with Mårtenson while the record was being made. No complaints were heard then.
      "Mårtenson did not care to hear the raw mix copy of the album, so we sent him the finished product. Of course we can now speculate that it would have been better had he heard it at an earlier stage", Kuoppamäki says.
      "Our only intention was to pay homage to a great Finnish musician."
     
Lasse Mårtenson is not planning to attend the concert being organised in his honour.
      "I will certainly not go to see something that is not me. There will be repercussions", Mårtenson promises.
      From the 1960s onwards, Mårtenson concentrated on writing incidental music for TV and cinema, and his main theme to the popular series Stormskärs Maja, about life in the archipelago, has become part of the soundtrack of recent Finnish light music.


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