Joonas Kokkonen

Joonas Kokkonen (November 21, 1921 – October 1 or 2, 1996) was a Finnish composer. He was one of the most internationally famous Finnish composers of the 20th century after Sibelius; his opera The Last Temptations has received over 500 performances worldwide, and is considered by many to be Finland's most distinguished national opera.

Music and influence

Even though he studied at the Sibelius Academy, he was largely self-taught in composition. Usually his compositions are divided into three style periods: a neo-classical early style from 1948 to 1958, a relatively short middle period twelve-tone style from 1959 to 1966, and a late "neo-Romantic" style of free tonality which also used aspects of his earlier style periods, which began in 1967 and lasted for the rest of his life.

Related Topics:
Neo-classical - Twelve-tone - Tonality

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Most of his early music is chamber music, and includes a Piano Trio and a Piano Quintet; the style is contrapuntal and influenced by Bartók, but looks back to Renaissance and Baroque models as well. In the second style period he wrote the first two of his four symphonies. Although he used twelve-tone technique, he avoided orthodoxy by occasionally using triads and octaves; he also liked to use the row melodically, giving the successive pitches in the same tone color (many other composers of 12-tone music split the row between different voices).

Related Topics:
Chamber music - Piano Trio - Piano Quintet - Contrapuntal - Bartók - Renaissance - Baroque - Symphonies - Tone color

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In the third style period Kokkonen wrote the music that made him internationally famous: the last two symphonies, the ...durch einen Spiegel for twelve solo strings, the Requiem, and the opera The Last Temptations (1975) (Viimeiset kiusaukset), based on the life and death of the Finnish Revivalist preacher Paavo Ruotsalainen. The opera is punctuated with chorales which refer back to J.S. Bach, and which are also reminiscent of the African-American spirituals used for a similar purpose in Michael Tippett's oratorio A Child of our Time. The opera was staged at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1983.

Related Topics:
Requiem - The Last Temptations - Paavo Ruotsalainen - J.S. Bach - African-American - Michael Tippett - A Child of our Time - Metropolitan Opera - New York - 1983

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