Hybrid SACD/CD notkeatonline MULTICHANNEL 5.0 Jouni Kaipainen (b. 1956) notkea keaton (Th e Ghost of Buster) Op. 86a (2008-2009) 20:10 1 The Ghost of Buster (2008) 11:39 2 Aubade beninoise (Beniniläinen aamulaulu)* (2009) 8:29 * esitettävissä myös itsenäisenä teoksena Jouni Kaipainen can be performed as an indenpendent work Paavo Korpijaakko Paavo Korpijaakko (b. 1977) Usko Meriläinen 3 Amuse-bouche (2008) 15:58 Usko Meriläinen (1930-2004) 4 Aikaviiva (Timeline) (1989) 19:18 Konsertto nro 2 orkesterille (Concerto No. 2 for Orchestra) Publishers: Edition Wilhelm Hansen [1–2], Fennica Gehrman [4] Total 55:36 ABCD 342 notkeatonline Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra - Tampere Filharmonia Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra - Hannu Lintu Hannu Lintu conductor - kapellimestari course the Peltsi guys did this, too, in a more ingen- e Jouni Kaipainen ious way that diff ered from the New Age standard. notkea keaton (Th e Ghost of Buster) I therefore decided to snatch certain attributes from this landscape as sustenance for my piece. I added My friend the actor Markku ‘Peltsi’ Peltola, a founder to the line-up an instrument I don’t usually use, an member and pillar of the lively Telakka culture house electric bass guitar, and because it’s specifi cally there in Tampere, died after a long and gruelling illness to represent Markku Peltola, there is no point expect- on New Year’s Eve 2007. I wrote notkea keaton (The ing it to do anything “particularly rock”. After all, I Ghost of Buster) partly in memory of him. A man myself am not, Heaven forbid, anything in the nature abounding in ideas, outwardly calm but in possession of a rocker! of a keen, mercurial intellect, Peltsi knew towards the Even more to the point was borrowing the end that he did not have much time left, but he spirit and name of Buster Keaton. In some enigmatic referred to death only as a “transfer to the sources way, the playing of Peltsi’s ensemble was borne along of humankind”. And I doubt that anyone who knew by the inventive and virtuosic mental and physical him can, even now, believe that he is lost forever; turbulence of that great comedian of the silent-movie as one mutual friend put it, “Peltsi is just peltsying era. Keaton was best known for executing the most somewhere else now”, at least with as much original- incredible tricks and twists in the plot, stone-faced ity and to-do as when he was still with us. I’m certain and without twitching a single muscle. Th e result he would never have wanted us to hold a gloomy was a wild emotional tension; could anyone else ever memorial service. Th e Telakka folk were a hundred have expressed such almost supernatural sensitivity by per cent aware of this and the event they did hold such deliberately limited mimetic means? His acro- in his memory was accordingly beautiful and fun. I batic feats were also unsurpassed, and he never needed am equally certain that any work composed in his stunt men for even the most daring ones. It was memory would have to be far removed from the usual this apparent discrepancy between his serious expres- weeping, wailing and rhetoric. sion and fantastic movements that gave me the basic Peltsi was not just an actor; he was much dramaturgical idea for my composition. Which is why more. One of his occupations in the last years of his I defi ned it as “serious sketches and scherzos for life, and one that took up more and more of his orchestra”. It is important to note that these elements time, was making music. He founded an ensemble dominate the music separately for only part of the and with it toured Europe with, I believe, consider- time. Towards the end, especially, they are not even able success. Th e name of the band was Th e Buster meant to be distinguishable. Th e music is carried Keaton Film Orchestra, and it played music that along by the laconic meditative impulses on the elec- diff ered radically from the run-of-the-mill club stuff . tric bass, but Keaton style, always with diff erent It was both unexpected and focused, often with rela - results. I’m not surprised if some consider the out- tively soft dynamics, as if lost in thought. And of come a “mishmash”. I can assure them it’s meant to otkeatonlin 3 n be. Th e Finnish title notkea keaton is, besides being my Aubade as part of its programme. I’m told the Paavo Korpijaakko wail. And not, of course, in the way they were before, an understatement of Keaton’s gymnastic contortions beach was packed with listeners and the atmosphere but in a somewhat diff erent way, adding parts from (‘notkea’ in Finnish means ‘supple’), also a play on was inquisitive and warm. Geographically speaking, Amuse-bouche completely diff erent toys and whatnots and above all words in which the mirror images of the fi rst and the threads of the composition are in any case tied little oddments thrown together, shreds of a soft toy last syllables frame the two identical middles ones. together at the end. Th e djembes give way to the I have often thought, more in private than in public, stuck on the chassis of an electric car, all topped Many of the motifs, melodies and other details of the frame drum better known in Finland and often called that something we might call “the composer persona” with decorative twirls of Plastacine. Th e ever wise composition observe this abstract model. Since the a “shaman’s drum”. At times keeping closely to the seems to exist. I say this despite the fact that the and practical Witold Lutosławski was referring to play on words works only in Finnish, I decided to add written notes and at others improvising, the drum colleagues with whom I am acquainted are, by all something like this when he said: Composers often The Ghost of Buster for international arenas – with its supplements the enchanting world of percussions that measures, a truly motley crowd. But they all have do not hear the music that is being played; it only obvious ghostbuster associations. dominates notkea keaton. If anything, then Peltsi was, something in common: something that has enabled serves as an impulse for something quite diff erent – And that’s not all. When my wife and I vis- of course, a shaman! As one of our last joint ventures them to work within this peculiar profession. Now for the creation of music that only lives in their imagi- ited Benin in West Africa in November 2000, and the he asked me to make a song arrangement in many I am not talking about natural talent or other neces- nation. It is a sort of schizophrenia – we are listening to Finnish-Benin Villa Karo culture house that had just parts of the African lullaby Abi yo yo (the one my sary attributes; what I mean is a stratum lodged deep something and at the same time creating something else. been opened, I decided that one day this tremendous, friend Toru Takemitsu used in his choral work Wind within the recesses of the personality that not only Th e experience is one only too familiar to members positive culture shock would be translated into music. Horse). Peltsi never got to hear this, but it is here now, makes composing as a profession possible but that of this profession, which is why Lutosławski had I had plans for an impressionistic, dusky, hazy scene ending this memorial piece on a suffi ciently beautiful simply orders a person to act in a way that is so obvi- no compunction about using the common noun yet an astoundingly bright sunrise on the shores of and positive note. ously at odds with common sense. How, then, could ‘composers’ and did not, to be on the safe side, speak the Atlantic, the nearest opposite shore being in Ant- So much for background; the music is what this “composer persona” be manifest in concrete terms? only of himself. arctica. Integral elements of that musical vision were counts. Th e composer must undoubtedly entertain at Th ere are undoubtedly lots of other constitu- West African drums, djembes, and rising out of the least a certain curiosity about the deep structures of ents of the “composer persona”, which I cannot go mist a hymn performed in unison by a great band of music. If the average listener to music is like a child into now. For the important thing is not to dwell on instruments. Th is in fact became a completely diff er- playing normally with his toys, and professional musi- the preconditions for my own profession’s image – it’s ent piece called Aubade beninoise that is incorporated cians are those who develop a burning passion for beginning to make me feel a bit embarrassed – but to as such in the latter half of notkea keaton. My aim in some toy and cannot put it down, then a person put forward an additional claim that is one step more using African instruments and in trying to capture the encumbered with a composer persona is one who has “serious”. For I have the feeling that it is possible to mood was not to provide a little tourist exoticism; it to take the toy to bits in order to see how it works – spot the “composer persona” at fi rst sight, as it were, sprang from the genuine charm of a unique phenom- and to discover that after this “deconstruction” it without virtually any profound deliberation.