SENSATION
Premiere of new works
Performed by Lempikuoro
Conducted by Julia Lainema
Friday 4th of November, 2022 at 7pm
Suomenlinna Church
BLOSIS // WIND (slang/informal)
Leo Niemi
Tuomittu Maa // Doomed Earth
Jouko Kelomäki
solo: Paavo Rinkkala
Lauluja tinkimättömyydestä // Songs of Perseverance:
Miks nukut sä vaan // Why Do You Sleep
Hymns of Zion (1972) nro 174: 1–3, 6, 8
version from Pohjois-Savo, arr: Säde Bartling
text: Anders Nordenskjöld, Finnish trans: Elias Lagus, rev: Wilhelmi Malmivaara
Ehdottoman kieltäytymisen sietämättömyys I // The Intolerability of Absolute Refusal I
Säde Bartling
text: Jer. 20: 8–11
Pääkallot // Skulls
Lassi Vihko
text: Eino Leino
Tattarisuo
Antti Suomalainen
Scroll down for composer bios and lyrics
JULIA LAINEMA
“I know thee not, thou knowest me not”, states Eino Leino in his poem Skulls. Yet “all are alike”. The pieces in this concert reflect on various aspects of human life: the horrors of war, faith, desperate acts. The production of this concert has been a unique opportunity to work exclusively with newly-composed works. Furthermore, it is a notable and rare thing that all but one of the composers also sing in the choir. We hope you have a memorable concert – it is time to bring this brand new choral music to life!
Julia Lainema graduated with a Master of Music degree in Choral Conducting from the Sibelius Academy in the of summer 2022, having previously completed a Master of Music degree in Music Education. In addition to Lempikuoro, Julia is the artistic director of Ahjo Ensemble, Kaari Ensemble and, from spring 2023, the Näs Chamber Choir. She arranges and composes choral music and has organised various choral music events. Julia is a member of the Committee for Equal Opportunities of the Finnish Choral Directors Association and writes a blog on choral music called “Women composers in choral music”.
Lempikuoro
Lempikuoro is a Helsinki-based mixed choir founded by professional and experienced singers in autumn 2019. In Lempi, high-class singing meets the joy of making music and exploring new performance methods together. The choir’s repertoire is based on a wide range of classical choral music from the Renaissance to the present day. In August 2022, Lempikuoro performed in the highly acclaimed Sun & Sea opera production, which was part of Kiasma’s ARS22 exhibition and the Helsinki Festival. The choir was among the first choirs to hold its own livestream concert during the strict pandemic restrictions in autumn 2020 and also performed with pop singer Janne Masalin in autumn 2021.
Leo Niemi:
BLOSIS
Hailing from Länsi-Vantaa, Leo Niemi began his musical journey at Martinlaakso elementary school playing Metallica on bass. His interest in music led him from Vaskivuori high school to the Helsinki Pop & Jazz Conservatory and even further to the University of Helsinki’s Musicology Department where Niemi’s curiosity for music found a home.
Curiosity is a hallmark of Niemi’s music. For example, his rap alter ego Leokoira released Häslinki EP in early 2022, combining hip-hop, jazz and metal in a way that had never been heard before.
BLOSIS is another leap into the unknown. Composed in 2017 and released on Spotify, the transcendental sound artwork reaches the edges of the human voice, exploring what kind of tones and colours the human voice can actually produce.
Blosis is Helsinki slang for “wind”.
Jouko Kelomäki:
Tuomittu Maa // Doomed Earth
Doomed Earth is inspired by end-of-the-world cynicism that runs rampant online. This phenomenon irritates the composer because of its often weak and misrepresented scientific reasoning, but which in itself provides a solid emotional basis for composition. Doomsday and its definitions are also used as powerful instruments of discourse in different societies. Perhaps this piece will at least provoke discussion of such power at the coffee table.
Jouko Kelomäki studied mathematics at the University of Helsinki with mediocre grades under various teachers, lecturers and professors. The degree proved to be too tough a feat though, and they never graduated. A career as a teacher did not suit emotional Jouko either, so they ended up switching to programming and consultancy. This seemingly resulted in newfound self-confidence, which they have leveraged in composing this piece for Lempikuoro.
Lyrics:
Tuomittu Maa // Doomed Earth
The energy released from the impact of an asteroid or comet with a diameter of five to ten kilometers or larger is sufficient to create a global environmental disaster.
An example of the devastating effects is a cloud of fine dust ejecta blanketing the planet partially blocking direct sunlight from reaching the Earth’s surface thus lowering land temperatures by about 15 degrees Celsius, halting photosynthesis.
As an expert assessed: It’s a hundred percent certain Earth will be hit by a devastating asteroid, but we’re just not sure when.
Doomed Earth, Doomed Earth
The Sun’s luminosity has increased by a percent every hundred and ten million years. Once the solar luminosity is ten percent higher than its current value, the planet’s climate changes.
The average global surface temperature will rise to 47 degrees Celsius. The atmosphere will become a “moist greenhouse” leading to a runaway evaporation of the oceans.
Runaway evaporation of seas
Water molecules in the stratosphere will be broken by solar UV allowing hydrogen to escape the atmosphere.
Water will slowly escape out to space
The result will be a loss of the world’s seawater by about 1.1 billion years from the present.
Doomed Earth, Doomed Earth
In octodecillion years is the absolute end. The laws of physics state: entropy must increase. When maximum entropy is reached, heat death occurs (heat death occurs): no more movement, no energy, nothing.
Jouko Kelomäki
Säde Bartling:
Lauluja tinkimättömyydestä // Songs of Perseverance
I am a composer-arranger specialising in vocal music, with strong influences from jazz, folk music and traditional art music. Songs of Perseverance is a series of songs based on ex-priest Kai Sadinmaa’s book Tinkimätön kuolemaan saakka (Bazar 2022) – partly autobiographical, partly about the fate of the famous Finnish conscientious objector Arndt Pekurinen. For lyrics I have used both excerpts from Sadinmaa’s book and other thematically similar texts. Two parts of the series will be performed by Lempikuoro.
Lyrics:
Lauluja tinkimättömyydestä // Songs of Perseverance
Why Do You Sleep
Why do you sleep?
Why do you close your soul to the Lord?
Go fight,
Ah, towards death you go.
Thou art insane,
Who waste time and heaven,
And like a madman
but rushes to the toils of hell.
Why in thy sins
dost thou live so sorrowlessly?
Why thy Jesus
Thou dost forget till the end?
So forsake thee already,
Thou wilt not win heaven by play
And take a new one,
lest judgement come upon thee.
Ah, my Lord,
spare not thy mercy, spare not thy trouble.
I will buy thee
thou from the devil’s snares.
Hymns of Zion (1972) No 174: 1–3, 6, 8
Anders Nordenskjöld, trans. Elias Lagus, rev. Wilhelmi Malmivaara
The Intolerability of Absolute Refusal I
Whenever I speak, I cry out
proclaiming violence and destruction.
So the word of the Lord has brought me
insult and reproach all day long.
But if I say, “I will not mention his word
or speak anymore in his name,”
his word is in my heart like a fire,
a fire shut up in my bones.
I am weary of holding it in;
indeed, I cannot.
Jer. 20: 8–11
Lassi Vihko:
Pääkallot // Skulls
The first version of Skulls was composed in March 2022 in reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the final version was completed in August. Set to a poem by Eino Leino, the work explores anti-war sentiment by asking the simple question: “Why do we wage war?”. In this poem, skulls fall into the mud as time puts the senselessness of violence into perspective – in the end, no one remembers why or against whom the war was fought.
Lassi Vihko is a composer and sound designer working mostly in the gaming industry. In addition to his work, Vihko enjoys making music in his spare time, both in Lempikuoro and at home at his piano. Skulls is the first work Vihko has composed for a mixed choir.
Lyrics:
Pääkallot // Skulls
The snow is fading, the ice receding,
And skulls grin from the swamp,
Asking each other:
“What man art thou in a strange land?“
They know not one another,
But all were reaped by death,
Now all are alike:
“I know thee not, thou knowest me not.”
“I fight for my motherland.”
“I strive for heroism.”
“I struck for the sake of humanity.”
“I ate a warrior’s bread.“
The swamp is melting, the snow vanishing,
Skulls sink into the mud,
Only bubbles here and there,
and soon no one to see them.
Eino Leino
From the collection Elämän koreus (1915)
Antti Suomalainen:
Tattarisuo
The idea for the piece was first born after reading about the Tattarisuo case in Perttu Häkkinen and Vesa Iitti’s book Valonkantajat (The Bearers of Light). The case is mainly known for its gruesome occultist rituals using body parts of the dead, which Finnish media quickly realised was the story of the century. However, the book also describes a more human side of the case, presenting the perpetrators as social outcasts, desperate to use magic to seek “justice in a society where it was not given to their kind”.
This contradiction serves as the basis for the first two parts of the work, the texts of which are excerpts from police material at the time. The first part is based on the ‘Mass of Tattarisuo’, which describes the pursuit of eternal happiness and the overcoming of injustice in the name of Fenetzar, the concocted god of glory. The second part of the text is based on a vision of Ida Widen (one of the key figures in the case), which ultimately led to the use of body parts in the occultist acts.
The media attention given to the Tattarisuo case was quite exceptional in the 1930s. The scoop remained on the front pages of the major newspapers for weeks, regardless of whether there was anything new to tell. The third part of the work builds around texts compiled from these headlines and news items. The speculation on the front page about the culprit provides an interesting point of reference for the phenomenon that thrives still today, particularly on social media, where mysteries are solved by the public, often with very questionable results.
The text of the fourth part is based on an opinion piece written by Urho Karhunmäki for Helsingin Sanomat, in which he reflects on the significance of the sensation created by the whole case. Decades later, his ideas on the significance of media sensationalism still seem relevant.
In addition to the book, I used Pyry Waltari’s and Jaakko Ylikotila’s doctoral theses in my research, especially for the correct timing of newspaper stories.
The composition work was supported by Taiteen edistämiskeskus.
Tattarisuo is a district in Northern Helsinki, former Malmi.
References:
Häkkinen, Perttu & Iitti, Vesa: Valonkantajat. Välähdyksiä suomalaisesta salatieteestä. Like 2015.
Ylikotila, Jaakko: Ruumiinsilpomista, vapaamuurareita ja politiikkaa – Tattarisuon juttuun liitetyt yhteiskunnalliset merkitykset kolmessa helsinkiläisessä sanomalehdessä 1930–1932. Pro gradu ‑tutkielma. Tampereen yliopisto 2013.
Waltari, Pyry: Kun kansa itse ratkaisee arvoituksen: Tattarisuon tapauksen määrittely käytännöllisessä diskurssissa. Pro gradu ‑tutkielma. Helsingin yliopisto 2011.
Antti Suomalainen is a Helsinki-based composer and music technologist. His compositions range from electronic music to choral music. His latest choral composition, Kesäpäivänä, for female choir was awarded the special prize in the first ever P. J. Hannikainen Composition Competition. In addition to composing, he works extensively in sound engineering in studios and performances. Suomalainen has studied Music Information Technology at the University of Sussex and Music Technology at the Sibelius Academy, where he graduated with a Master of Music in 2019.
Lyrics:
Tattarisuo
I
Insurmountable, invincible is Fenezare’s path of truth.
Slowly no, slowly no, the path of truth if urgent.
Not to stand before my sisters, not on the path of truth that I walk,
Where there are no sisters, no ancestors, no ancestors, no sisters.
Let me not stand, no standing.
Not inside, not outside, where the ancestors are.
I’m going out to conquer the world, to conquer millions, to conquer them from injustice.
Through Fenezare to the path of truth, where there are no sisters, no ancestors
Not slowly, not walking, not walking, the path of truth is urgent,
Through Fenezare to the path of truth. Where there are no sisters no ancestors no.
Not slowly, walking no, urgent is the path of truth,
That through Fenezare leads the invincible,
To the insurmountable path of truth.
Urgently I cross the lands and the seas
To conquer millions of people and raise those suffering
and to declare the truth to them, to purify with water
To fight against injustice on the untrodden path of truth,
where a million bloody sufferers in injustice are starving.
Standing before the sisters, the ancestors
is urgent is urgent to wash and cleanse with the water of truth
To everlasting life, to happiness unending,
From everlasting to everlasting, Through Fenezare to the wedding of Cana,
where joy is supreme.
Slowly no, slowly no, the path of truth is urgent.
Not to the underworld, not down to the underworld,
But out to the world to conquer millions of people,
On the road of truth that will lead to life everlasting.
Through Fenezare into the underworld from eternal to eternal life,
which is endless.
Eternal Fenezar Beginning and End.
II
The graves open and everyone rises,
because now is the fall of the great people, and now is the
the time of distress and ordeal;
Woe to those who fall under my hand.
Yet happy are they that remain.
III
Body parts were found in the water non-stop.
Nine feet, eight hands, two thumbs,
a bunch of severed fingers and a human head.
Is this a mysterious case or a horrific crime?
The curtain begins to rise, the coffins speak.
Five headless bodies in Malmi.
One and a half dozen with missing limbs.
The curtain begins to rise, the coffins speak.
Is it all about selling body parts to students,
or the work of a psychopath?
Is this a superstitious act by drifterers?
The police remain silent, yet must have a lead.
Are these ordinary mentally ill people
or just poor souls under a secret occultist spell,
losing their mental balance?
The police know all this,
but they don’t want it made public,
because it would be a big scandal in the eyes of the upper class and the learned.
Strange nocturnal visitors at the Harju morgue.
Has witchcraft been practised in the morgue?
The police remain silent, the coffins speak. The police remain silent.
IV
Hear me, dearest brothers and sisters!
The blood of modern man requires sensation,
but I wonder if this mental cocaine needs to be shared
and enjoyed day after day?
Hear me, dearest brothers and sisters!
What is the point of losing one’s own peace at night,
when there’s enough to trudge in this tattarinsuo/swamp
Hear me, dearest brothers and sisters!
Hear me, dear people.
Antti Suomalainen
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