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Leif Segerstam (b. 1944) Feelings and Visions is the
title given to his Sixth Violin Concerto. These two words encapsulate the
essence of his personality as
a composer. He is indeed a composer of feelings and visions – grand,
overflowing feelings and immeasurably broad visions. Segerstam is an easily
inspired shaman-like composer who can write a 20-minute orchestral piece in
a few days.
His output has reached Baroque proportions, and not even his active career
as a conductor has slowed him down. Indeed, he emulates Mahler in that he
divides his time between conducting in winter and composing in summer.
Segerstam made his debut in the early 1960s in no fewer than four different
capacities: a violinist, a pianist, a conductor and a composer. The two
latter have since developed into full careers. His early compositions, such
as the first four String Quartets (1962–66) and the miniature ballet
Pandora (1967) are usually described as ‘post-expressionist’.
Once he discovered his current style, which he describes as ‘free-pulsative’,
in his Fifth String Quartet ‘Sopuli’ (1970), this did not mean
abandoning the intensive emotional charge of his early works; if anything,
the reverse happened.
‘Free-pulsative’ refers to a manner of writing that leaves the
synchronization between individual musicians or groups of musicians partly
indeterminate. This results in the slowly undulating freedom of rhythm that
characterizes his works. Clear pulses and rapid tempos are rarities.
Sometimes the music even allows the musicians to choose their own dynamics.
Segerstam has for a long time developed a Utopian concept of an
‘organic musical kaleidoscope’ where a group of dedicated
musicians could assume his musical idiom so profoundly that they could
ultimately perform Segerstam’s music without any written notes. He has
taken a step towards this concept in the orchestral works he has written
since 1994, designed to be performed without a conductor; the overall form
is determined by signals played by different instruments in turn.
The ‘free-pulsative’ technique lends an aleatoric modernist
element to Segerstam’s music. His melodic writing is also modernist in
that it is usually free-floating and chromatic; his harmonies extend from
triads to dense clusters. Nevertheless, the dominant aesthetic in his music
is late Romantic and Expressionist, a sort of pursuit of constant climax and
ecstasy, the ‘now moment’, the importance of which he never
fails to emphasize. From the 1980s onwards, how-ever, his music has also
allowed room for delicate feelings and quiet meditation.
Segerstam’s colossal output is exceptionally coherent in style and
expression. Mikko Heiniö has said, that ‘Segerstam does not so much
create independent works as strands from the same musical flow of
consciousness’. This is evident in the series of works with the same
title; such cases in chamber music are the 28 String Quartets or the
numerous works titled NoÏm or Episode. In orchestral music, Segerstam has
written numerous Orchestral Diary Sheets and Thoughts.
Confusingly, Segerstam has adapted many of his works into versions for
different instruments. His most extensive series of works consists of his
Symphonies, which, however, in no way differ from his other orchestral works
in expression or structure. Until August 2002, he had written a staggering
81 Symphonies, fifteen of them during the record-breaking summer of 2000
alone.
His Symphony No. 101 is given its first performance at tonight’s
concert.
Symphony No. 101
La Forza del Destino, which by coincidence combined my composing activity (I
was working on No. 101 of my symphonies for large orchestra, without
conductor!) with a possibility to give a world premiere of one of my
symphonies at the opening concert of the 2004 ‘Warsaw Autumn’
Festival with the Taipei Philharmonic Orchestra, showed the glimpse of a
humorous situation. The orchestra from Taipei in Taiwan giving birth to the
sounds of my 101 Symphony gained an extra inspiration from the fact that the
musical activities would carry greetings from the cultural life of a city
which has a skyscraper called ‘101 Building’! It is the
world’s tallest building.
This symphony gives the listeners in the audience the possibility to turn
their phenomenological experience on the same level of intimacy as if the
‘bench-musicians’ would present in a gigantic chamber music
spectacle. The sounds are directly distributed, nobody up front is pointing
towards the activities, there is no added body language of a conductor there
to disturb the honesty of the connection between the receiving docked
listener satellites and the ‘mother-ship’ with musical
gladiators on the podium.
The latent creativity of the symphonic collective shows itself in the
responsibility for timing which is given to the participants of this
‘virtual musical reality play’ for such a large group of
musicians surfing and clicking with the notated links and options chosen by
the composer on his ‘homepage’ – the pages of the score.
This style can be described as ‘free-pulsative’.
The gestures of a conductor are translated into audible signs which clearly
are given by different instruments at the letters a to e, making this work
having the form of a ‘rosary’ with six musical portions as the
spirit-giving gems to be enjoyed and taken to the hearts of those who feel
‘connected’. Perhaps it helps to say the sounds could have
attributes such as ‘post-Viennese School’ or the ‘ Nordic
touch’ inspired by the beauty and forces of Nature.
Leif Segerstam
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