“Kalevala-sarja” Uuno Klamiego jako dzieło przełomowe fińskiego narodowego modernizmu

Abstract

„The Russian Modernists such as Prokofiev and Stravinsky and new Spanish music shook me up from top to toe. ... It was around that time that I went to the Sorbonne to borrow a copy of the Kalevala” (Virtanen 1945: 613– 614). Abovementioned sentence was said by the Finnish composer Uuno Klami (1900 – 1961), who during his studies in Paris (1924 – 1925) was fascinated by the music of Igor Stravinsky, Maurice Ravel, Sergei Prokofiev and Manuel de Falla. Inspiring by achievements of Western modernists Klami wanted to break up the tendency begun by Jean Sibelius to treat Finnish epos Kalevala only in the national romantic spirit. In 1930s Klami under the impression of The Rite of Spring ’s score started composing vocal-instrumental work based on topics from Kalevala. However dur- ing working on it he changed his preliminary plans and composed a five-movement sym- phonic suite Kalevala-sarja op. 23 [Kalevala Suite]: Maan synty [The Creation of the Earth], Kevaan oras [The Sprout of Spring], Terhenniemi, Kehtolaulu Lemminkaiselle [Cradle Song for Lemminkainen], Sammon taonta [The Forging of the Sampo]. Kalevala-sarja started in Klami’s output searching for his personal voice and influenced on his further style. Nowadays the score is regarded as the most significant Finnish or- chestral compositions from the first half of the 20 th century, and very often is called The Finnish Rite of Spring. The article’s goals are: to introduce into Klami’s output, to demon- strate the genesis and inspirations of the suite Kalevala-sarja and to briefly analyse par- ticular movements of the composition in the light of European modernistic influences.