University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Student Research, Creative Activity, and Music, School of Performance - School of Music 4-2014 Yrjö Kilpinen's Kanteletar-lauluja, Opus 100: A Performance Guide Lisa Marie Howell University of Nebraska-Lincoln, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/musicstudent Part of the Music Performance Commons Howell, Lisa Marie, "Yrjö Kilpinen's Kanteletar-lauluja, Opus 100: A Performance Guide" (2014). Student Research, Creative Activity, and Performance - School of Music. 73. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/musicstudent/73 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Music, School of at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Student Research, Creative Activity, and Performance - School of Music by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. YRJÖ KILPINEN’S KANTELETAR-LAULUJA, OPUS 100 A PERFORMANCE GUIDE by Lisa M. Howell A DOCTORAL DOCUMENT Presented to the Faculty of The Graduate College at the University of Nebraska In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Musical Arts Major: Music Under the Supervision of Professor Donna Harler-Smith Lincoln, Nebraska April, 2014 YRJÖ KILPINEN’S KANTELETAR-LAULUJA, OPUS 100 A PERFORMANCE GUIDE Lisa M. Howell, D.M.A. University of Nebraska 2014 Advisor: Donna Harler-Smith Yrjö Kilpinen (1892-1959) was a Finnish composer who was active primarily during the first half of the twentieth century. Although he is relatively unknown today, during his lifetime the only Finnish composer who was more celebrated was Jean Sibelius. Kilpinen’s creative efforts were focused almost entirely on art song, while Sibelius focused on larger forms, such as symphonies and tone poems. The most recent account of Kilpinen’s output includes nearly 800 art songs in three languages (Finnish, Swedish, and German), as well as several part songs, choral pieces, and instrumental works. His extensive output in the song genre makes Kilpinen Finland’s most prolific composer of art song. This document focuses on Kilpinen’s Kanteletar-lauluja, Opus 100, a song cycle written in 1948-50. It was his last large scale Finnish work, containing 64 songs with texts from Elias Lönnrot’s Kanteletar, a collection of Finnish folk poetry. The document includes a detailed biography of Kilpinen focusing on the development of his career, after which Lönnrot’s Kanteletar is discussed and placed within the context of Finnish nationalism. The remainder of the document is intended to provide the tools necessary for the English-speaking singer to perform the work. It includes a discussion of musical style, suggestions for breaking the cycle into performable chunks, a description of Finnish lyric diction, and translations, both word- for-word and poetic, with pronunciation given in IPA (the International Phonetic Alphabet). iv PREFACE I began searching for a topic for my doctoral document at a time when I was also researching my own family history. This led me to an interest in Finland, since my great- great grandparents were from Ylistaro, a town in western Finland. On a whim I looked up Finnish composers and was surprised to find a large number of composers writing in a variety of genres and styles. I quickly became interested in Yrjö Kilpinen because of the large number of art songs he composed. I discovered that several people had already written about him, but few had focused on his Finnish song cycles, and none had tackled the entirety of the Kanteletar-lauluja, opus 100. There are many excellent cycles that I could have chosen to write about, but this work jumped out at me because of the nationalistic importance of the Kanteletar. Upon further study, I also discovered that the music is quite beautiful and eminently singable, if the appropriate resources are available. My own love of languages made me eager to learn more about Finnish, which is unfamiliar to most North American singers. I was previously completely ignorant of the language, but I have come to appreciate its strangeness and complexity. I find it to be a beautiful and inherently melodic language, perfectly suited to song. With the right resources, any singer who has learned to sing in French, German, and Italian ought to be able to sing in this language with very little difficulty. The purpose of this document is to introduce American singers to a composer whose music is worthy of consideration and to provide the resources necessary to v perform the Kanteletar-lauluja, opus 100. It is my hope that through this resource others will be able to discover the beauty of this music and the Finnish language, as I have. Lisa Howell, April 2014 vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank: Donna Harler-Smith, for her endless encouragement and support Julia Schleck, for her kind and gracious assistance with my many questions Jamie Reimer, for her confident strength and understanding Therees Hibbard, for her kindness and gentle encouragement Minna Sorell, for her assistance with the translations The staff of The Sousa Archives at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, for helping me with my research in the Jeffrey Sandborg Collection of Yrjö Kilpinen Music, which is housed there vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract .......................................................................................................................... ii Preface ........................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................ vi Table of Contents ..........................................................................................................vii List of Multimedia Objects .............................................................................................. x CHAPTER 1: Biography of Yrjö Kilpinen ....................................................................... 1 1892-1919: Childhood, Education, and the Beginnings of a Career ...................... 3 1920s: Into the World........................................................................................... 8 1930s: Rising Fame ............................................................................................ 12 1940s & 1950s: Kilpinen the Academician ......................................................... 17 Kilpinen’s Major Works, Organized by Date Composed .................................... 21 Premieres of Kilpinen’s Music Through 1965 .................................................... 24 CHAPTER 2: The Kanteletar ........................................................................................ 36 Finnish Nationalism ........................................................................................... 37 The Kantele ....................................................................................................... 39 Music and Performance ...................................................................................... 43 Organization ...................................................................................................... 44 viii CHAPTER 3: Musical Style in Kilpinen’s Kanteletar-lauluja, Opus 100 ....................... 45 Kilpinen’s Place in the Lied Tradition ................................................................ 45 Accompaniments ............................................................................................... 47 Melodic Features ................................................................................................ 51 Rhythm, Meter, and Tempo................................................................................ 53 Harmony ............................................................................................................ 54 Form .................................................................................................................. 56 CHAPTER 4: Suggestions for Performance ................................................................... 57 Entire Cycle ....................................................................................................... 57 Full Recital ........................................................................................................ 62 Sets .................................................................................................................... 63 CHAPTER 5: Singing in Finnish ................................................................................... 65 Grammar ............................................................................................................ 65 Pronunciation ..................................................................................................... 66 Additional Descriptions of Specific Sounds........................................................ 71 Stress ................................................................................................................. 72 Syllabification .................................................................................................... 72 Special Doubling................................................................................................ 73 ix CHAPTER 6: IPA Transcriptions and Translations ........................................................ 74 Vihko 1 .............................................................................................................