Aarre Merikanto (29 June 1893 – 28 September 1958) was a

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

. He was born in

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

, Grand Duchy of Finland, the son of Elise "Liisa" Häyrynen (1869-1949) and the famous

romantic Romantic may refer to: Genres and eras * The Romantic era, an artistic, literary, musical and intellectual movement of the 18th and 19th centuries ** Romantic music, of that era ** Romantic poetry, of that era ** Romanticism in science, of that e ...

composer, professor

Oskar Merikanto Oskar Merikanto (; born Frans Oskar Ala-Kanto; 5 August 1868, Helsinki17 February 1924, Hausjärvi-Oitti) was a Finnish composer, music critic, pianist, and organist. As a composer, Merikanto was primarily a miniaturist, and includes songs an ...

(1868-1924). His childhood he spent in

Vilppula Vilppula was a former municipality of Finland. Neighbouring Mänttä was merged into it on 1 January 2009 to form the municipality of Mänttä-Vilppula. The municipality was unilingually Finnish. It was located in the province of Western Finlan ...

, Finland. He married Meri Grönmark in 1919. They had two daughters, Anna Marjatta Peltonen (née Merikanto) and Arma Kyllikki Tukia (née Merikanto). He later married Evi Sylvia Mähönen (1910-1968). They had two sons, Ukri Uolevi Merikanto (1950-2010), a sculptor and Pan Ylermi Merikanto (1951-2012). He is considered a key figure in early Finnish modernism (together with Väinö Raitio and

Ernest Pingoud Ernest Pingoud ([]; 14 October 1887 – 1 June 1942) was a Finland, Finnish composer. Life Born in Saint Petersburg to a German-Finnish mother and a father of French Huguenots, Huguenot ancestry, Pingoud was a pupil of the Russian composers Anto ...

) and several of his works, most notably the opera

Juha Juha is a masculine given name of Finnish origin derived from Johannes (or John in English language contexts). Notable people with the name include: * Juha Alén * Juha Gustafsson * Juha Hakola * Juha Harju * Juha Haukkala * Juha Hautamäki * Ju ...

, have obtained posthumous attention. As professor of composition in the

Sibelius Academy The Sibelius Academy ( fi, Taideyliopiston Sibelius-Akatemia, sv, Sibelius-Akademin vid Konstuniversitetet) is part of the University of the Arts Helsinki and a university-level music school which operates in Helsinki and Kuopio, Finland. It als ...

(1951–1958) Merikanto taught several Finnish composers of the next generation, including

Einojuhani Rautavaara Einojuhani Rautavaara (; 9 October 1928 – 27 July 2016) was a Finnish composer of classical music. Among the most notable Finnish composers since Jean Sibelius (1865–1957), Rautavaara wrote a List of compositions by Einojuhani Rautavaara, gre ...

, Usko Meriläinen, Aulis Sallinen and Paavo Heininen. He studied music in

1911,

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

1912–1914 and

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

1916–1917. Merikanto's early style was rooted in Finnish romanticism, but in the 1920s he developed a personal, atonal but not

dodecaphonic The twelve-tone technique—also known as dodecaphony, twelve-tone serialism, and (in British usage) twelve-note composition—is a method of musical composition first devised by Austrian composer Josef Matthias Hauer, who published his "law o ...

Modernist style. The reception of Merikanto's works of this period was mixed: the "Schott" Concerto for nine instruments was awarded in a competition organized by the German publishers Schott & Söhne, but his domestic Finnish audiences and critics were generally unenthusiastic and his opera Juha, today considered one of his major works, was never performed during Merikanto's lifetime. Disappointed with the reactions, starting in the early 1930s, Merikanto gradually abandoned his more radical style and turned towards a more traditional idiom based on

Neoclassicism Neoclassicism (also spelled Neo-classicism) was a Western cultural movement in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that drew inspiration from the art and culture of classical antiquity. Neoclassicism was ...

. He also destroyed or mutilated the scores of several works from his earlier style period, some of which were later reconstructed by his last composition student Paavo Heininen. His work was also part of the music event in the art competition at the

1948 Summer Olympics The 1948 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XIV Olympiad and also known as London 1948) were an international multi-sport event held from 29 July to 14 August 1948 in London, England, United Kingdom. Following a twelve-year hiatus ca ...

. Merikanto was diagnosed with

lung cancer Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma (since about 98–99% of all lung cancers are carcinomas), is a malignant lung tumor characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissue (biology), tissues of the lung. Lung carcinomas derive from tran ...

in the summer 1957, and he died on 28 September the following year, in Helsinki, aged 65.

Main works

* ''

'', opera (1922; premiered in 1963) * Symphony No. 1 in

B minor B minor is a minor scale based on B, consisting of the pitches B, C, D, E, F, G, and A. Its key signature has two sharps. Its relative major is D major and its parallel major is B major. The B natural minor scale is: : Changes neede ...

(1916) * Symphony No. 2 in

A major A major (or the key of A) is a major scale based on A, with the pitches A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. Its key signature has three sharps. Its relative minor is F-sharp minor and its parallel minor is A minor. The key of A major is the only k ...

(1918) * ''Symphonic Study'' (1928) * Symphony No. 3 (1953) * Violin Concerto No. 1 (1915) * Violin Concerto No. 2 (1925) * Violin Concerto No. 3 (1931; destroyed) * Violin Concerto No. 4 (1954) * Piano Concerto No. 1 (1913) * Piano Concerto No. 2 (1937) * Piano Concerto No. 3 (1955) * Cello Concerto No. 1 (1919) * ''Konzertstück'', for cello and chamber orchestra (1923) * Cello Concerto No. 2 (1941) * ''Lemminkäinen'',

symphonic poem A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of orchestral music, usually in a single continuous movement, which illustrates or evokes the content of a poem, short story, novel, painting, landscape, or other (non-musical) source. The German term ''T ...

(1916) * ''Pan'', symphonic poem (1924) * ''Notturno'', symphonic poem (1928) * ''The Abduction of Kyllikki'', symphonic poem (1936) * ''Schott Concerto'', for violin, clarinet, horn, and string sextet (1925) * Nonet (1926) * ''Fantasia'' (1923) * Ten Pieces for Orchestra (1930) * ''Olympic Fanfare'' (1939) * ''Song of the City by the Sea'',

cantata A cantata (; ; literally "sung", past participle feminine singular of the Italian verb ''cantare'', "to sing") is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir. The meaning of ...

(1949–1950) * ''Genesis'', cantata (1955)

Chronological list of compositions

References

External links

Composer profile
on the Finnish Music Information Center * {{DEFAULTSORT:Merikanto, Aarre 1893 births 1958 deaths Musicians from Helsinki People from Uusimaa Province (Grand Duchy of Finland) Pupils of Max Reger 20th-century classical composers Finnish classical composers Deaths from lung cancer Finnish male classical composers Finnish opera composers Male opera composers Burials at Hietaniemi Cemetery 20th-century male musicians Olympic competitors in art competitions 20th-century Finnish composers