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Customer Reviews (2)

Generally pretty horrible
Pirkko Moisala's book about Kaija Saariaho, published by University of Illinois Press in 2009, is one of the few monographs on the Finnish composer. Unfortunately, it is a great disappointment.

The problems are legion. For one, it appears that there was little to no real editing of the manuscript. Typos ("the ensemble L'Itinerairen"), spelling mistakes ("Karl-Heinz Stockhausen") and ungrammatical direct translations from Finland ("from the Finland's Academy") abound. There's hardly a single page without such errors. Moisala's English style is atrocious and I wish she had simply written the book in Finnish to begin with and then had it professionally translated into English. Also, the book is lightweight. Discussion of her music is all generalities. At less than 150 pages long, it still manages to be highly repetitive.How many times do we need to hear the same general statement that Saariaho has incorporated timbre and tone-to-noise transitions into her basic musical grammars? There are sketches of the form of two works, but not a single score sample.

I guess that the book does have some value for its trivia (the stuff that isn't mispelt to unintelligibility at any rate), and Saariaho provides something of an apology for why she no longer uses electronics as much as before. Still, anyone interested in Saariaho's life and work can get the same information as here, and much more detailed analysis of her music, by simply doing a search at JSTOR and reading the articles which the Finnish Music Information Centre has placed online. The IRCAM publication about her music also has some lovely discussion of certain works.

First book about Saariaho in english
This is absolutely a very good and profound introduction to Kaija Saariaho and her music. You get a lot of biographical and musicological information, and this coherent presentation is nice, especially if you have no access to all the finnish articles, interviews etc. You get a very good overview of the composers different phases e.g., and a very profound description of the works related to the different periods of composing. You also get access to different kinds of statements from Saariaho herself (often translated from finnish), which is also nice, because she does not speak very much about her own music or aesthetics, and a description of her relationship to close colleagues and their common approach to art.
It is written, as the author describes it, out of love for Kaija Saariaho's music and you can sense the undercurrent of deep insight and understanding for this music, which makes the book special. There are how ever a lot of errors in the different types of data, and all though you find out, when the numbers do not make sense - as when it is said, that Peter Sellars' direction of Messiaens Saint Francois d'Asisse in Salzburg was in 1998 (it was in 1992), when it is supposed to have been an inspiration for Saariaho for her first opera, which must have been something like half-way finnished by then - it is a pity, that you have to do an extra check elsewhere to make sure, that you get the right information. If it was not for these errors I would have given the book 5 stars, because it is a very well written book. ... Read more

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This work was commissioned by Rudolf Steiner Foundation. It is dedicated to Anssi Karttunen, who gave the first performance in Helsinki on 10th September 2000. Sept papillons was the first piece Saariaho wrote after her opera L'Amour de loin and it was pa

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Chapters: L'amour de Loin, Adriana Mater, Émilie. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 20. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Lamour de loin (Love from Afar) is the first opera by the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho from a five act French libretto by Amin Maalouf. The opera was given its world premiere performance on 15 August 2000 at the Salzburg Festival and its US premiere on 31 July 2002 at the Santa Fe Opera. Saariaho, living in Paris since 1982, had become familiar in 1993 with La vida breve by one of the first great troubadours of the 12th century, Jaufré Rudel. Prior to that she had seen a Peter Sellars staging of Messiaens opera, Saint-François d'Assise at the 1992 Salzburg Festival, but did not think that she was capable of writing one. However, the production convinced her of the possibility of transforming the poem into an opera, given Sellars sensibility and talents: If that is an opera, then I can write one" she is quoted as saying. The idea for an opera on this subject was to evolve over the following seven or eight years. After she was so taken by seeing the original manuscripts of the story of Jaufré (the love-struck young poet who wrote to a faraway lover in Tripoli, Lebanon), she set his poem to music as Lonh in 1996, a score for soprano and electronic instruments. The sensibilities and backgrounds of both Amin Maalouf, a Lebanese-French author and journalist also living in Paris, and Saariaho both voluntary exiles - brought them together to collaborate to turn a seemingly simple story into a complex story very simply told. ..(And with) the straightforward trajectory of its plot, Lamour de loin turns anxiously around deeper themes obsession and devotion, reality and illusion, the loneliness of the artist, the need to belong. Having secured an advance commitment from t...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=8439079 ... Read more

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Concerto For Flute And Orchestra. Study Score edition.First performed at the Flanders Festival in Brussels 12th October 2001.Composer's Notes<-i>: I have been very familiar with the flute since my earliest pieces. I like the sound in which breathin

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Work for Orchestra commissioned by the Cleveland Orchestra in 2002.

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Les achats comprennent une adhésion à l'essai gratuite au club de livres de l'éditeur, dans lequel vous pouvez choisir parmi plus d'un million d'ouvrages, sans frais. Le livre consiste d'articles Wikipedia sur : Kaija Saariaho, Pehr Henrik Nordgren, Leif Segerstam, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Jouni Kaipainen, Magnus Lindberg, Aulis Sallinen, Erik Bergman, Kalevi Aho, Paavo Heininen, Eero Hämeenniemi, Jaakko Mäntyjärvi, Jorma Panula, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Tuomas Kantelinen. Non illustré. Mises à jour gratuites en ligne. Extrait : Kaija Saariaho, née Kaija Anneli Laakkonen le 14 octobre 1952 à Helsinki, est une compositrice finlandaise. Kaija Saariaho apprend la musique à partir de l'âge de 6 ans, avec comme instruments le violon, le piano et l'orgue. Elle s'oriente vers l'académie des Beaux-Arts de Helsinki pour y étudier la peinture et le dessin, tout ayant la volonté de devenir compositrice. Elle décider d'étudier sérieusement la musique en 1976, et intègre l'Académie Sibelius de Helsinki, dans la classe de Paavo Heininen. L'enseignement de Heininen est rude, mais Saariaho le reconnaît comme essentiel, lui permettant notamment de lever un blocage sur son expression musicale. Elle participe à des rencontres entre jeunes compositeurs, et forme un groupe qu'ils appellent Korvat auki (oreilles ouvertes en finlandais), qui comprend entre autres Magnus Lindberg, Jouni Kaipainen, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Jukka Tiensuu. En 1980, Saariaho se rend à Darmstadt et y découvre l'école spectrale française, en particulier la musique de Tristan Murail et de Gérard Grisey, ce qui a été pour elle une vraie révélation. Elle termine ses études à l'académie Sibelius en 1981. Elle quitte ensuite la Finlande pour étudier à Fribourg-en-Brisgau, auprès de Brian Ferneyhough et Klaus Huber, pendant deux ans, puis à l'IRCAM à Paris, pour se former à l'informatique musicale. Elle vit à Paris depuis 1982. Elle est l'auteur de trois opéras : L'Amour de loin (2000) et Adr...http://booksllc.net/?l=fr ... Read more

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Requires Macintosh computer, Midi Interface, Lexicon sound processor, Yamaha sound processor, digital reverb, midi switch pedal and interface and microphones. ... Read more

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This composition was written quickly in a matter of days, however the composer describes the longer process of writing the piece as unconscious preparation.There are opposite elements on display within the piece, fragile coloristic passages give birth t

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The Full Score of Kaija Saariaho's Lichtbogen For Nine Musicians and Live Electronics. The title for this work stems from the composer's experience of seeing the Northern lights whilst starting work on writing the piece, this experience also shaped the form and language of the piece. Lichtbogen was the first time Saariaho had worked with a computer in the context of purely instrumental music, this new compositional element led to harmonic material being created by analysing short transitions played with a violin and cello, starting with artificial harmonic sounds and ending up with complex multi-phonic sounds. The rhythmic elements of this piece were created using a network of computer programmes, allowing the composer to construct interpolations and transitions for different musical parameters, rhythmic interpolations created through sets of musical patterns that are repeated but each time slightly modified in character. Lichtbogen is the commission of the French ministry of culture and is dedicated to Paul Mefanc. A splendid work for Ensemble (Flute, Percussion, Harp, Piano, 2 Violins, Viola Cello, Double Bass) and Live Electronics by this inimitable Finnish composer. ... Read more

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Laconisme De L'Aile<-i> is a work from 1982 for Solo Flute with optional electronics.

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The composer has developed musical processes through the use of computer programming methods and this approach has allowed a broadening of vocabulary of the colour or tone of string instruments and the contrast of limpid, delicate textures with violent, shattering masses of sound.The basis for the entire harmonic structure of the piece is provided by complex cello sounds and the rhythmic and melodic transformational platforms are computer-calculated in which musical motifs gradually convert, recurring again and again. Score and Electronics booklet for Nymphea arranged for String Quartet and Live Electronics.Composed 1987, duration 18 minutes. ... Read more

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A superb piece by the magnificent Kaija Saariaho completed in 1990. Oi Kuu<-i> translated as for a moon<-i> is set for Bass Clarinet and Cello with a duration of approximatley 6 minutes. It signalled a brief period between two large orchestral works

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Written for solo piano. ... Read more

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Je Sens Un Deuxième Coeur was commissioned for Emanuel Ax by The Carnegie Hall Corporation. The world premiere was given at the Judy and Arthur Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall, New York City on 12 April 2004 by Emanuel Ax, Paul Neubauer and Fred
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Written for solo viola and electronics.

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