TURKU PO/TAMPERE PO/ GRAFFIN P

De in 1912 geboren Finse componist Tauno Marttinen verwierp zijn eerste, door de hoogromantiek beïnvloedde werken, maar zonder zich vol overgave op de avant-garde te storten. Hiermee is hij vergelijkbaar met Sibelius, en zeker in zijn eerste pianoconcert, hier gespeeld door Ralph van Raat, zijn de invloeden van Tchaikovsky eveneens duidelijk hoorbaar. Ook het vioolconcert klinkt vertrouwd, maar dat is zeker geen diskwalificatie; Marttinen werkte vanuit de traditie, maar zocht zijn eigen vrijheid. Dat blijkt vooral uit de vele fantasieën, zoals die voor cello en orkest.


Tauno Marttinen: Violin & Piano Concertos & Phantasy for Cello & Orchestra

Concerto for Violin and Orchestra
Piano Concerto
Phantasy for Cello & Orchestra
Philippe Graffin, Ralph van Raat
Turku Philharmonic Orchestra, Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra, Marko Ylonen

Tauno Marttinen’s life encompassed almost all of the 20th century. Living from 1912 to 2008, he lived to be nearly 96 years old. He was born in Helsinki and studied in Viipuri, which was then one of the most important and vital towns of Finland. As a young man he played the piano in restaurants and places of entertainment; he also wrote and arranged Finnish tangos, a.o. for the Finnish tango-singer Olavi Virta (1915-1972), who would later become very famous.

During the early decades as a composer he wrote in a romantic idiom. In the middle of the 50s he left this behind and became one of the leading composers of Finnish modernism.

“In the early sixties we were all influenced by Schönberg, whether we liked it or not. For many, however, this method of composition became overwhelmingly mathematical and abstract, without feeling, spirituality and freedom,” Marttinen states.

Freedom was of the utmost importance to Tauno Marttinen. He viewed dodecaphonic music as a headlong rush from the rules that govern classical music. In turn, the consequence for him was that this twelve-tone principle should never be allowed to rule music mathematically, because this would rule out freedom.