HS music critic wins Finlandia Prize for Non-Fiction for his work on Finnish conductors
The Tieto-Finlandia Award is considered Finland's most significant non-fiction prize
By Ilkka Malmberg
Vesa Sirén reminds me of another, now deceased colleague: Seppo Heikinheimo (1938-1997).
Both of them possess features like a multiplicity of talents, internationalism, speed, efficiency, and a measure of arrogance into the bargain.
One should not be too surprised to hear that a weighty almost 1,000-page tome by Sirén entitled Suomalaiset kapellimestarit, Sibeliuksesta Saloseen, Kajanuksesta Franckiin (”‘Finnish Conductors: from Sibelius to Salonen, from Kajanus to Franck’”) came from the presses earlier this autumn.
Neither is it any surprise that he has won the 2010 Tieto-Finlandia award for his comprehensive reference work, with an prize sum of EUR 30,000 attached.
But how is it possible that he ever had time to write his book, in addition to his work for the newspaper?
”It was in the wee small hours of the night. As a rule, for two or three hours from the moment when I managed to get my child off to bed”, Sirén says.
He nevertheless points out that the most time-consuming work - of going through archives - was done during a five-month leave of absence that was funded by the Finnish Cultural Foundation.
There are two kinds of writers: fast ones and slow ones.
Both can be good, of course, but in terms of speed Sirén belongs to the first-mentioned variety.
In the editorial offices of Helsingin Sanomat we know well that when Vesa leaves for a concert trip to Vienna, he will interview the soloists and conductors, sniff out a news story if one is to be had, review the gig, make a report on his journey, and if he has time in the afternoon before the show, he will also knock off a piece on the Sachertorte, for the Food and Drink section, you understand. Or perhaps it will be a quick overview of the city’s goth clubs.
In his book, Sirén goes through Finnish conductors from the 1880s to the present day - from Robert Kajanus to Mikko Franck.
As he is a colleague, I also dare to ask him some silly questions concerning the book.
For a start, what purpose does the conductor serve in a concert?
”Each musician in the orchestra reads his or her own part. For example if a flutist has a rest of for example 13 or 32 or 46 measures, he or she watches the conductor in order to see the conductor bring him or her in”, Siren notes.
”In addition, there are tempo and time signature changes during a piece, allowing quickening or slackening of the tempo to restore balance”, Sirén goes on, unruffled by the question.
Sirén also observes how a skilled conductor, faced with an orchestra all at sea, can pull the right strings to combine all parts together in a few seconds. An ordinary listener does not even have time to notice a bit of orchestral chaos that lasts only a brief instant.
”It is almost magic”, he adds.
Each player has his or her part, certainly, but the conductor reads the entire score, showing all the vocal and instrumental parts arranged one below the other. It seems like a superhuman feat.
Learning a score is a matter of several weeks' work. Generally conductors can hear the music playing in their head as they read.
Conductor Mikko Franck, the Artistic Director of the Finnish National Opera, is said to have started reading scores in this way already in his early teens.
”The image I had of Esa-Pekka Salonen became more human when I heard that he also occasionally goes to the piano, fingering for how the harmonies are supposed to sound”, Sirén admits.
Sirén highlights the role of the conductor as a foreman and creator of spirit at rehearsals.
How big a part, respectively, of the conductor’s work is done in the rehearsing stage and in the concert performance itself?
”I'd say some 80 to 90 per cent of the work is done during the rehearsals phase”, Sirén comments.
But then again if a world-famous conductor comes to town for a one-week visit, he or she cannot have many rehearsals.
How is it possible for the conductor to transmit to the orchestra in such a short amount of time exactly how he or she would like this piece to sound?
”With animated use of hands and body. He or she should talk as little as possible, as it takes so much time. That is the Finnish way", Sirén remarks.
”The music can be brutal in one passage and then gentle in another. It has to come out of the body, the facial expressions, gestures, rhythm. If it is not genuine, the musicians notice that he or she is not putting his soul into it”, Sirén notes.
Is a conductor in the same position as a theatre director, then, whose work is done once a performance begins?
”Not exactly, no. You have to remember the conductor is also a performing artist. If he or she is in the right mood, the performance is in a completely different class from an ordinary run of the mill arm-waving exercise.”
”For instance, conductor Paavo Berglund never put on an act, and one could see right away when he was in the right mood. If it wasn't working, he'd go through the piece perfectly correctly, but that was it. And then on those occasions when he was on, and he had the feeling in his fingertips, the performance was just fantastic”, Sirén recalls.
Given that we have just had a football international against San Marino and given that Finland's head coach has been given a lot of stick for the poor performances to date, I venture to suggest to Sirén that perhaps a conductor is a bit like an international coach - he can only supervise a few practice sessions before the big match, and in that time he has to get across his ideas to the players.
Even though it is the players on the pitch who move the ball around, coaches frequently get compared one with another. Some use their body forcefully from their position on the touchline.
Sirén listens patiently, but replies that there is one fundamental difference:
"Orchestras have become immensely more democratic of late. A chief conductor in Finland no longer has anything like the coach's undisputed role of selection, of who is going to be taken in to the orchestra, because there is also a panel of musicians doing that. The whole community makes the decisions."
The conductor’s charisma is nevertheless very important. Sirén says that traditionally Finns have been astonishingly quiet, considering how successful they have been.
”Berglund was content with telling the musicians not to "splash", whereupon all string instrument players knew that there was too much vibrato”, Sirén recalls.
”Jean Sibelius used to prattle on too much as he was so nervous on the podium. His technique was good unless he was drunk”, Siren continues.
When it comes to gesturing, there are two Finnish schools of conducting.
”Jorma Panula’s model is: beat as you like as long as it works. Direct when required, and don’t if it is not necessary”, Sirén analyses.
”According to Leif Segerstam, the baton hand must be automatised so that it follows a traditional pattern, with the point of the baton drawing the same calligraphic shape every time”, Sirén reports.
Do both hands have a function of their own?
”According to the traditional model, when one hand is waving the baton one two three or one two three four - depending on the time signature - the other regulates the dynamics, cueing the players for their entrances and so on”, Sirén explains.
”But then there are conductors who do it in another way. For example Okko Kamu has quite an original technique, using even his eyes and forehead”, Sirén mentions.
How is it possible that there are so many Finns among the world's most-renowned conductors?
Is it a similar phenomenon to the one that says ice hockey players come from the Czech Republic? Because they always have done so?
”To some extent, yes. As it has always been so, it leads to a continuum. I have avoided all explanations based on the national character. I see it as a social coincidence. Music was the way to make Finland’s voice heard. for language reasons, it could not really be literature”, Sirén argues.
”It was an expression of the Finnish people’s desire for freedom. Sibelius’s breakthrough brought us an enormous amount of goodwill”, Sirén feels.
”In those days, it was customary that the composer conducted his or her own compositions. As Sibelius could not find the time to go to all places, he used to send a homegrown substitute”, Sirén says.
Sirén himself is a pianist. He used to finance his studies as a music teacher.
All the same, he never dreamed of a career as a musician.
”No. I always wanted to become a journalist. I found it the coolest thing of all.”
In journalism, one has to know how to narrow down texts. Every time one has to leave a great deal, as there is so little space on the page, and so much competition for that space.
”Every single time when I have written for example a one-page article on a conductor, I have had to notice that damn it, how much of this am I going to have to discard. There is always twice as much text as there is space”, Sirén regrets.
"It was a real relief to me when my editor said after 850 pages that this is really tight text. Just continue the same way until the end."
There is one feature that distinguishes the 43-year-old Sirén from Seppo Heikinheimo most clearly: his taste for music is much much broader than Seppo's ever was.
Heikinheimo, who was music critic for Helsingin Sanomat for more than 20 years from the 1970s, would never in a million years have written a gig review of Finnish extreme metal band Children of Bodum on tour in New Jersey.
Or H.I.M. in Las Vegas.
To Sirén it is second nature.
A very important part of it has been his roots in punk. Sirén used to play in punk bands in the Tampere region, taking music lessons and studying music theory at the same time.
”I never saw any conflict between the two things”, Sirén notes.
On Father’s Day, Sirén got a CD box-set entitled Punk ja Yäk, 132 songs in all.
”There are some of my old friends in there, with whom we used to play at the same festivals, and recording demos on cassettes”, Sirén notes.
The choice for this year's Finlandia Prize from among six shortlisted works was made by economist Sinikka Salo, who has just retired from a position as one of the directors of the Bank of Finland.
”In my selection the subject matter is important”, Dr Salo notes. Classic musical ”touches my soul”, she says.
Vesa Sirén’s book is likely to educate and encourage readers to look for further information about the topic, Salo believes.
”The book can also serve as a handbook, if one wants to read background information about a conductor before or after a concert - or when listening to various recordings”, she notes.
According to Salo, Sirén’s work indicates that non-fiction will not die: "the result is a fine synthesis of a vast body of material - a great service for readers”.
Vesa Sirén: Suomalaiset kapellimestarit: Sibeliuksesta Saloseen, Kajanuksesta Franckiin (”Finnish conductors: From Sibelius to Salonen, from Kajanus to Franck”) Otava, 1,000 pages, EUR 37.90.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 19.11.2010
Links:
Finlandia Prize (Wikipedia)
Finnish Cultural Foundation
ILKKA MALMBERG / Helsingin Sanomat
ilkka.malmberg@hs.fi
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| 23.11.2010 - THIS WEEK |
HS music critic wins Finlandia Prize for Non-Fiction for his work on Finnish conductors
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