03/11/23, 15:00 Finnish Composer Punctures Her Own Myths at Miller Theater - The New York Times

MUSIC REVIEW | KAIJA SAARIAHO

Finnish Composer Bursts Some of Her Own Myths

By Allan Kozinn
Nov. 25, 2009

One of the perils of conducting a public interview with a composer is that you are likely to have your deeply held beliefs about
your interviewee’s work shrugged off. That happened to the composer George E. Lewis during his interview with Kaija
Saariaho during a Composer Portraits concert at the Miller Theater on Sunday evening. Mr. Lewis observed that some of Ms.
Saariaho’s music struck him as a kind of synesthesia: that the sound of her music seemed almost to invoke pictures.

“It is not my objective to make pictures,” Ms. Saariaho calmly responded. She invariably begins with an idea that she thinks of
as a “sonic image,” she said, and works from there.

But music is a supremely subjective art, and this Finnish composer’s demurrals aside, Mr. Lewis’s experience of her work
probably mirrors that of many listeners. Her titles, after all, are invariably picturesque, and her scoring is steeped in color and
texture. She is particularly fond of sparkling percussion — xylophones, triangles and marimbas have as much to do in her music
as the strings — and of bright flute lines, punctuated with overblowing techniques. Tremolando string figures create eerily tense
atmospheres or gently hazy ones, depending on the dynamics and balances.

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03/11/23, 15:00 Finnish Composer Punctures Her Own Myths at Miller Theater - The New York Times

Kaija Saariaho Claire Chase playing

in the Composer Portraits series at
the Miller Theater.
Yana Paskova for The New York Times

And in the earliest of the four works on the program, “Lichtbogen” (“Lightbow,” 1986), Ms. Saariaho’s inspiration seems to have
been visual. She is quoted in the program notes saying that the movement of the Northern Lights suggested ideas about the
work’s form and language.

Pictorial or not, Ms. Saariaho’s music is consistently exciting and eventful, and the International Contemporary Ensemble,
conducted by Brad Lubman, played a compact but persuasive selection of her works. Claire Chase gave a sizzling account of
the solo flute line in “Terrestre” (2002), a chamber arrangement of the closing section of Ms. Saariaho’s flute concerto, “Aile du
Songe” (“Wing of the Dream”). The flutist has plenty to do here. The writing is speedy and chromatic, and demands occasional
vocalization as well as close interplay with the percussion. At times the many things going on at once gave the score an almost
cinematic character.

“Solar” (1992), for chamber orchestra, is less kinetic than “Terrestre” but no less vivid. Everything in it seems to radiate from
an opening chord: a loud, percussive wallop that quickly gives way to gentle waves of tactile and sometimes soft-edged sound.
Harmonically the work revolves around a central core that seems to change very little, but the shifting textures on the music’s
surface keep this static harmony from sounding dull.

Ms. Saariaho achieves a similar effect in “Lichtbogen.” The musicians begin on a single pitch, which remains steady as attacks,
articulation and textures change. After a moment, instrumental lines veer off on their own, but they wander quite far afield,
with electronic sound, quick string ascents and deftly combined piano and pitched percussion producing a spacey effect.

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“Graal Théâtre” (1997), an explosive violin concerto, with Jennifer Koh as the soloist, closed the concert. The most substantial
of these four scores (though “Terrestre” comes close) and the most harmonically dense, this 30-minute concerto combines
visceral power and sheer beauty. Ms. Koh gave a stunning, high-energy account of the almost continuous solo line, with solid
support from Mr. Lubman and the ensemble players.

The next Composer Portrait is devoted to Lou Reed’s “Metal Machine Music,” on Feb. 5 at the Miller Theater at Columbia University, Broadway at 116th Street, Morningside
Heights; (212) 854-7799, millertheatre.com.

A version of this article appears in print on , Section C, Page 14 of the National edition with the headline: Finnish Composer Bursts Some of Her Own Myths

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