Performers & composers

Pekka Jalkanen

Pekka Jalkanen studied musicology at the University of Helsinki, gaining a doctorate with his ethnomusicological study of the jazz culture of the 1920s (Alaska, Bombay ja Billy Boy, 1989). He also studied composition with Erkki Salmenhaara. Jalkanen has been employed as a music editor with the Finnish Broadcasting Company, a choir conductor (the POL student choir, 1982-87) and as teacher at the folk music department of the Sibelius Academy (1989-) and lecturer in musicology at the University of Tampere (1991-). The first prizes he won in several composition competitions in the 1980s established his reputation as a composer.

Jalkanen has written two operas, worksfor various chamber ensembles and for choirs, music for films and for children. He has drawn upon various ethnic and popular sub-cultures such as the ancient music of the Karelians and the Ingrians, the music of the Andes and Gipsy music. He has fused these elements integrally into his own idiom quite as effectively as Erik Bergman has done. Repetitiveness, tonality and field techniques link Jalkanen with certain Estonian contemporary composers, notably Arvo Pärt, Lepo Sumera and Veljo Tormis. With Jalkanen, tonality consists of persistent root notes and diatonic scales of three to seven notes (e.g. E-F-A-B-C) rather than triads. This kind of neo-modality has worked well in works written for children, the most extensive of which is the opera Tirlittan (1986), based on Oiva Paloheimo's eponymous novel, and the musical fairy tale Oi ihana Panama to a text by Janosch (‘Oh lovely Panama', 1989).

Viron orja (Slave of Estonia, 1980) for string orchestra is based on a runo tune in the Aeolian mode. It is treated canonically and rapidly expanded into repetitive fields. This work is representative of Jalkanen's output in general. He came closer to Minimalism in his First String Quartet (1981), considered a pioneering effort in Finnish Minimalism. In Halla (Frost, 1980), a suite for string orchestra, the field technique produces even more purely sound-oriented, cloud-like structures composed of flageolets. The closest comparison for Jalkanen's repetitiveness can be found in Estonian contemporary music, particularly since Jalkanen often uses the Finnish kantele to create the scintillating field, associating the repetitive minor-key atmosphere with the tintinnabuli of Arvo Pärt; cf. the Kantele Septet (1987), Orjankukka (Wild rose, 1989), Toccata (1992), Siemen (Seed, 1993). Jalkanen's interest in the culture of other Fenno-Ugric peoples is evident in the texts he has selected for his vocal works, as in the works for children's choir entitled Vägehens otetut neidizet (The maidens taken by force, text by Ogoi Meäränen, 1982) and Piika Pikkarainen (Little maid, 1985). However, despite the importance of this source of inspiration, the major part of Jalkanen's output - including the Oboe Concerto (1982), the Guitar Concerto (1988), the string symphony Angelus mundi (1988), the opera Seitsemän huivia (The seven scarves, text by Vesa-Tapio Valo, 1990) - have nothing to do with it. He has summarized his background well in saying: "Children and Gipsies taught me how to write music."