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4 Mikko Heiniö and orchestra is in one sense a Requiem for Hei niö’s daughter, who died when still very young, but it also expands into a broad wind metaphor the harmony of which is fecundated by a 10-note chord discovered in some sketches by Skryabin. Also in the fourth movement, Tuuli Maria, is a Heiniö lullaby he sang to his daughter. Heiniö has admirably solved the problem of singability in modern music. In the Sextet (2000, for baritone and Schönbergian “Pierrot ensemble”) there are no awkward interval jumps. Diatonic cells can be detected, and there are no bulky chromatic blocks in the melodic flow. Embraced in the light, bright sound of the seven-movement work is an awareness of disappointment wounded by love, detached and numb. The falsetto singing in the skittish scherzo creates some ironic, comic dimensions. Playfulness and drama in chamber music The musicians performing Heiniö’s works are also offered a touch of physical drama, as in the Piano Quintet (1993), where they are expected to speak and hum text by Lewis Carroll. The resonances of the human body serve as a physical timbral extension that also has the ingredients for a hybrid. The playful and absurd, the gleeful feet-offthe-ground feeling are features of this composer. Wood is present in the piano quartet The Voice of the Tree (Puun ääni, 2006) inspired by the poetry of Eira Stenberg, in a very concrete manner; its feel is part of the physical aspect of the music. In addition to being played in the normal way, the strings are dampened, plucked, struck, tapped and rubbed to bring out the intrinsic sound of the wood, the soulfulness of which is far from mere dry woodworking. The string trio and piano together constitute a vision in which the listener may similarly detect the tree swaying in the wind, the movements of the branches and details of the foliage. Mikko Heiniö has long been a focal figure on the Finnish musical scene and continues to be so as Chairman of the Society of Finnish Composers and Vice-Chairman of Teosto, the Finnish Composers’ Copyright Society. He has been composer-in-residence of the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra for more than a decade, and he was the author of the volume on contemporary music in the History of Finnish Music that won the nation’s most prestigious prize for non-fiction, the Tieto-Finlandia. Jukka Isopuro Translation: Susan Sinisalo
CURRICULUM VITAE Mikko Heiniö (born on 18 May 1948) studied piano with Liisa Pohjola and composition with Joonas Kokkonen at the Sibelius Academy from 1971 to 1975. The two years 1975–77 were spent with the Polish teacher Witold Szalonek in Berlin. Heiniö also studied musicology at the University of Helsinki, finishing his doctoral thesis in 1984 and working as Professor of Musicology at the University of Turku from 1985 to 2005. Heiniö´s repertoire contains over 80 works. The main pieces of his music are his orchestral works such as eight piano concertos, Vuelo de Alambre (cycle for voice and orchestra, 1983), two symphonies (Possible Worlds, 1987 and Songs of Night and Love, 1997), Wind Pictures for choir and orchestra (1991), On the Rocks (1998), trumpet concerto Envelope (2002) and Alla Madre for violin and orchestra (2006). Among his main chamber music works are Framtidens Skugga for soprano and brass band (1980), Piano Trio (1988), Piano Quintet (1993), Treno Della Notte (2000) and Café au Lait (2006). Of his choral works, one could mention Three Folk Songs (1977), Luceat (1992), Non-Stop (1995) and Pikavuaro Turkku (Turku Express, 2002). Especially in his piano concertos Heiniö has combined different musical genres and types of expression: his fourth piano concerto Genom Kvällen (Through the Evening, 1986) features a choir and a string orchestra with the soloist; in the sixth (Hermes, 1994) there is a soprano and a string orchestra as well, and his eight, Månkonsert (The Moon Concerto, 2008) introduces a mezzo-soprano and a large orchestra. Hermes and his seventh piano concerto Khora were planned together with choreographer Tiina Lindfors for the dance theatre ERI. Lindfors has also three other choreographies on her account made for Heiniö´s music. In recent years, Heiniö has been gearing towards musical theatre. He composed a church opera, The Knight and the Dragon (Riddaren och Draken, 2000) for Turku Cathedral´s 700th anniversary and Käärmeen hetki (The Hour of the Serpent, 2002–2005), an opera premiered by the Finnish National Opera. His third opera about the Mikko Heiniö 5
Page 1: Mikko Heiniö
Page 4 and 5: 2 Mikko Heiniö The second symphony
Page 8 and 9: 6 Mikko Heiniö King Eric XIV of Sw
Page 10 and 11: 8 Mikko Heiniö Päivi Nisula in He
Page 12 and 13: WoRKS foR SoLoIST(S) aND oRCHeSTRa
Page 14 and 15: Khora (Piano Concerto No. 7) 12 Mik
Page 16 and 17: Neljä yölaulua / four Night Songs
Page 18 and 19: Symphony No. 2 “Songs of Night an
Page 20 and 21: CHaMBeR WoRKS Suite for flute and T
Page 22 and 23: Piano Quartet “The Voice of the T
Page 24 and 25: CHoRaL WoRKS Drei finnische Volksli
Page 26 and 27: VoCaL WoRKS Neljä yölaulua (four
Page 28 and 29: Sextet 26 Mikko Heiniö
Page 30 and 31: 28 Mikko Heiniö CD sampler 1. Poss

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