Jukka Linkola welcomes the role of emotion and communication in his
border-crossing music

Jukka Linkola (born in 1955) is a unique phenomenon in Finnish music,
perhaps not primarily as a revolutionary reformer - at least not in the
usual sense of the word - but rather by virtue of his as
unconventionally as consciously chiselled artistic profile.
In the early 80s, a time when aesthetic opinions were often rigorous and
stylistic leeway minimal, Linkola swept in as a fresh breeze on a
Finnish musical stage that was pretty well totally dominated by an
intellectually oriented modernism of the Central European kind favoured
primarily by colleagues of Linkola's own generation.

In this "post serialist" environment, where parameters such as tonal
melody - or any melody whatsoever - and even pulse and functional
harmony were banned and the rational approach dominated over the
emotional, Linkola emerged as an odd figure. The syntactic basis of his
musical vocabulary consisted of these very "taboos".

Of course, he was not the only one. Other young composers, such as Lars
Karlsson and Timo-Juhani Kyllönen, held a kind of outsider status with
regard to the prevailing climate, and were soon to be joined by other
eccentric demagogues of their own generation, such as Eero Hämeenniemi
and Jouni Kaipainen, who felt downright claustrophobic about the
modernist straitjacket.

Unprejudiced cross-breed of styles

The interesting and - according to many the preposterous - thing about
Linkola was that he had no Sibelius Academy pedigree but a jazz
background. Moreover, Linkola was a practising musician and conductor in
the historical tradition, and this was looked on askance by many during
a time when the Composer - and the Conductor - were put on a doubtful
pedestal.

Linkola had, at first, studied the piano at the Sibelius Academy in
order to become a concert pianist, but gradually jazz music took up more
and more of his time, and in 1976 he and a few of the country's foremost
young musicians in the field founded the Jukka Linkola Octet. This
ensemble is considered today a style builder and pioneer in its genre,
and its first record Protofunk (1979) was the first real fusion jazz
record to be produced in Finland after an American East Coast model
(i.e. the Brecker Brothers).

At the time when his jazz career really took off, Linkola had already
been engaged as a rehearsal pianist at Helsinki City Theatre and from
1979 on, he worked as the theatre's permanent conductor. He was to hold
this post for thirteen years, and it influenced his development as a
composer and musician decisively.

In 1983, Linkola took the first step out into the unknown and presented
the work Crossings for tenor saxophone and symphony orchestra. In his
typically curious and unprejudiced way, he was thereby the first in
Finland to study the consequences of a confrontation between a jazz and
blues coloured solo voice and orchestral art music, between
improvisation and notation.

Although the intended fruitful synthesis did not quite come about -
because the attempt was comparable to that of uniting fire and water -
Crossings holds a position as a key work in Linkola's production. Not
least since its author has ever since then kept the two genres
consistently apart. Art music is art music and jazz is jazz. This
separation may seem artificial, but it has great practical relevance,
nevertheless.

Quantity and quality

At forty-five, Linkola has produced more works than many composers can
accomplish during a lifetime. His opus list now approaches two-hundred.
Productivity, in his case, does not seem to be an end in itself, but
rather an expression of his personal character and temperament. And
unlike many other Vielschreibers, he rarely turns out pieces that do not
have a strongly felt musical motivation. What has been said about
Telemann's works could easily apply to Linkola's production:
surprisingly much is surprisingly good.

Although Linkola has expressed himself within almost all musical genres
- with the exception of modern pop and rock music - we can easily
discern four main categories: jazz (including works for big bands and
smaller ensembles), laulelmas [Finnish for songs, ballads, chansons etc.
meaning approximately "something sung"], music for the stage (including
works for theatre, musicals, operas, ballets and, as an extension, film
and TV music), and last but not least so-called art music (including
works for orchestra, chamber ensembles, choirs and solo instruments).

Linkola has endeavoured to let the various genres and expressions live
their own lives on their own conditions. Yet, a few red strands can be
seen between them in his works, the main themes being - partly relying
on his links to jazz - a dynamic and vital use of rhythm, an intuitive
feeling for vocal and instrumental colours and sound values, and an
unflinching belief in the timeless power of the melody.

Personal big band synthesis

Although Linkola has not composed any jazz works since the mid-1990s,
his production in this genre is extensive: almost fifty works for the
big band, in addition to a large number of pieces for various smaller
ensembles, among which the most famous besides the octet is the ten man
Jukka Linkola Tentet - a vital 90s project where Linkola shows his
ability to write fresh and functional modern fusion jazz that despite
its accessibility never lures its composer to compromise his high
artistic ambitions.

Linkola's works for the big band can be described as personally coloured
syntheses of so-called Third Stream, modern big-band aesthetics and
various kinds of fusion elements. He lets strictly scored parts - not
seldom including complex rhythmic figures and eccentric combinations of
instruments and playing techniques - alternate with improvised parts
that rarely turn into mannerisms but rather seem to be a natural
consequence of the musical context.

Among Linkola's most ambitious compositions in the genre we find, for
example, the international award winner Structures (1987/93) and the
half-hour long suite Grand Mystery (1985). Among his most characteristic
works we find the cantata Feuerwerk for big band and mixed choir (1997),
where he combines texts from the Kalevala (Finnish national epic) and
the Song of Solomon with various ethnic influences into a kind of
Finnish "world music". Another unconventional work, which also shows his
genuine anchoring in Finnish folk music, is the suite Sketches from
Karelia for a jazz ensemble and strings, in which Linkola - just like
Sibelius- writes his own "folk music" that he sifts through the filter
of cosmopolitan jazz.

A most original project resulted in the record Libau (1997), the score
of which Linkola wrote for the electronically coloured sextet EQ (with,
among others, himself on the keyboards and his faithful armour-bearer
and "all-round wizard" Pentti Lahti on the saxophone). Although this
highly varied music has strong jazz-influenced under-currents, it is
almost impossible to categorise, and we see Linkola sacrificing - albeit
with a twinkle in his eye - at least his little finger on the altar of
modern technology.

The theatre as a school

The City Theatre was, obviously, an important source of ideas and
inspiration, but also a highly efficient school for the young composer.
He learnt his trade: this is where the conductor Linkola, who was later
to stand before symphony and opera orchestras and big bands in the
homeland and abroad, first climbed on to the podium. This is where he
got the opportunity to put his ideas into practice, and this is where
his love for the human voice as a tool of artistic expression was born.

An important detail with regard to his career as a composer was the
unique opportunity that the theatre gave him to try strongly varied
styles, genres and instrumental combinations. In his various productions
- sometimes even in one and the same work - he spanned rock and folk
music, cabaret, variety show, chansons, and more advanced forms of
drama music and musical theatre.

Among the works that Linkola wrote for the City Theatre and other
stages, we find the musicals Peter Pan (1985) - his first attempt at a
genre that still holds an important place in his heart - Max and Moritz
(1987), Kallion kimallus (1989, Eng: The Glitter of Kallio [district in
Helsinki]), Kairatut sydämet (1992, Eng: Perforated Hearts) and his
hitherto most ambitious project in the genre, the entirely sung Antti
Puuhaara (1994), as well as drama music for productions of, e.g., Peer
Gynt, Boris Godunov and King Lear.

In many ways, Linkola's numerous detached vocal works form a central
part of his production. In these, his spontaneous melodic genius
triumphs, weaving in clear influences from jazz, chanson, and the
political slogan songs of the 1960s and 1970s. These elements are also
found in, among others, the vocal suite Muisti (1993, Eng: Memory) with
lyrics by Ilpo Tiihonen and the duet record Silta (1995, Eng: The
Bridge), where Linkola once more collaborates with his old colleagues
from the theatre Susanna Haavisto and Eija Ahvo.

In the domain of opera

The same highly developed feeling for subtleties in the text and the
ability to make lyrical and melodic vocal characterisations that we see
in Linkola's works for the theatre stage are present in his works for
the opera, although the register here is much broader and the stylistic
and technical aspects more complex and diverse.

Although Linkola's first two operas are close in time, they represent
two different worlds. The TV opera Angelika (1990-91, libretto by Ilpo
Tiihonen, directed by Juha Hemánus) is stylistically more diverse and
has a more boiled-down plot than Elina (1992) composed for the Finnish
National Opera to a libretto by Pentti Saaritsa drawing on an ancient
Finnish myth. The latter was Linkola's first attempt at a full-evening
opera for a complete opera ensemble. In this work, he combines his
typical energetic rhythmic drive with mostly dark orchestral colours
and an occasionally blooming melodic beauty. The composer himself feels
that, to date, Elina is his most important work.

Mostly due to a staggering set-up which did not do justice to the
opera's numerous dramatic and musical qualities, Elina did not become
the expected success. The old "opera fortress" in Savonlinna would be
the optimal place for a new set-up, which many hope to see. With
Täyttyneiden toiveiden maa (1998, Eng: The Land of Fulfilled Hopes,
libretto by the composer after a text by Toivo Pekkanen), Linkola took
yet another step forwards in the field of musical drama. Here, the tonal
language is already more sophisticated and selective, and the melodious
element more obvious than ever. The climax of the last act definitely
ranks among the most dramatically efficient score pages that Linkola has
ever written.

Linkola's relationship to dance has always been intimate - his wife is a
dancer and choreographer - and while his early works for dance theatre
Banana and Näkki should be seen as etudes in the genre, he knows his
trade in Ronja Rövardotter (1989, Ronja the Robber's Daughter after a
book by Astrid Lindgren, with choreography by Marjo Kuusela), a
full-evening ballet commissioned by the Finnish National Opera. This is,
to date, his most extensive orchestral composition.

In this work, he refines his outstanding skills as an orchestrator
managing to capture the numerous shifts between light and shadow in the
libretto. It is beyond doubt that his models must have been Prokofiev
and, as in so many other works, Stravinsky, but Linkola skilfully avoids
any kind of cheap imitation, partly through the immediate spontaneity of
his music, partly through an impressive melodic expression that is
altogether his own.

Neo-classical ideals

Linkola, in other words, is a typical eclectic who, in his art music
works - more than in his jazz works - does not hesitate to draw on
tradition and use whatever ingredients that serve him best. But Linkola
is definitely an eclectic in the most positive sense of the word. He
does not bow too deeply to any of the historical authorities, and he
always projects their influences through his own, intricately cut,
musical lens.

In his orchestral and chamber music production, Linkola is a pronounced
neo-classicist, or actually "neo-neo-classicist", and the influences
from Honegger, Hindemith, Poulenc, Jolivet and, above all, his idol
Stravinsky are easy to discern - yet rarely too dominating. The
influences from his other great idol Lutoslawski have not, however,
found any discernible and concrete expressions in Linkola's music, which
mostly has a free tonality - albeit at times with clear tonal accents.

Among the orchestral works, two main blocks emerge: concertos and film
music. The key work among the first category in both stylistic and
expressional terms is the stunningly virtuoso and jolly First Trumpet
Concerto (1988), which also marks the birth of Linkola's interest in
concertos for brass instruments and orchestra which has been lively up
until this day. In film music, his score to Lumikuningatar (1986, Eng:
The Snow Queen directed by Päivi Hartzell after a story by H.C.
Andersen) holds a special position with its almost Bernhard Hermann
-like expression, its memorable melodic generosity and sensitive
atmosphere.

On the whole, it seems natural for a composer of Linkola's temperament
to write film music. He pronouncedly uses melody and has the ability to
turn relatively simple ingredients into a palpable atmosphere, to
illustrate an event or to describe a state of emotions. Among other film
music scores of his we find the melancholy subtle string orchestra
accompaniment to Ihmiselon ihanuus ja kurjuus, (1988, Eng. appr: The
Beauty and Misery of Life) directed by Matti Kassila after [Finnish
Nobel Prize winner] Frans Emil Sillanpää's novel. This score was awarded
the Jussi prize for film music - as indeed that of Lumikuningatar had
been, too. We also find the score to the Swedish film Vita lögner (1994,
Eng: White Lies) where the occasionally pastiche-like approach sometimes
comes close to waltz or tango entertainment.

Completed series of solo concertos

The first trumpet concerto was followed in the 90s by a series of
concertos for each brass instrument in the symphony orchestra. Some of
these works were commissioned by the Brass Festival in Lieksa, and the
series became complete with the French Horn Concerto (2000). This
jovially life-embracing but technically extremely demanding work was
specially written for the virtuoso Markus Maskuniitty.

The Finnish composer Paavo Heininen once said that a solo concerto
should always be a portrait of the particular solo instrument. Linkola,
in his turn, has acquired a profound knowledge of many of these
instruments during his jazz career, and he endeavours to highlight the
specific features of each instrument - and musician - thus demonstrating
fascinatingly the versatility and many faces of the instrument.

In his Tuba Concerto (1992) Linkola contrasts, in his typical manner,
heavily swinging rhythmical parts with dreamlike flowing parts, bitterly
dissonant non-tonal passages with warmly melodic tonal ones, extrovert
power with introvert lyricism. The same pattern is repeated in the
Trombone Concerto (1998) vacillating between harsh obtrusiveness and
mild melancholy, whereas in the Euphonium Concerto (1996, written for
Jukka Myllys) - the first of its kind in Finland and one of the few in
the world - Linkola lets the technically manageable and velvetly smooth
instrument excel in the jauntiest romantic tonal language of his art
musical works to date.

In addition, the 1990s have seen a second concerto for trumpet (and
string orchestra) by Linkola (1993), a flute concerto (1997), in which
the mythically ritual properties of the flute have been honoured, an
organ concerto with a comforting Lacrimosa movement that with its
extrovert melodies almost resembles film music (1999, dedicated to his
mother, who died while the work was written), and a saxophone concerto
(1998, for alto saxophone and symphonic wind orchestra), in which
Linkola has endeavoured to consider the special demands posed on the
solo voice by a classical way of playing.

Brassy chamber music

The more intimate size of chamber music provides better opportunities
than orchestral music for an even sharper focus on the expressive and
emotional elements in music. These factors have a central position in
Jukka Linkola's pronouncedly communicative and emotionally oriented
musical world.

This becomes obvious in Between two stages (1987) for mezzo soprano,
cello and piano, where the expressional tension is exceptional even for
Linkola, and in Autumn Concerto for string quintet and wind quintet
(1996), in which Linkola - as so often before - links a seriously felt
basic grip with a directly communicative sound shape. Truly, this is
intricate balancing which, to many composers, seems to imply
unsurmountable problems.

The same goes for the Clarinet Quintet (1995) and, above all, the
Bartok-like, rhythmically intricate String Quartet (commissioned by
Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival 1996), in which the formal freedom and
flexibility that Linkola has adopted in many of his works for larger
ensembles feels more concentrated and controlled than before. We meet a
Linkola who has gone a long way - but a logical way - from his early
jazz experiments.

For the rest, brass instruments have a strong position in his chamber
music, too, with works such as Suite for Brass Quintet (1985, "First
Brass Quintet"), Three Pictures for Brass Quartet (1993), Brass Quintet
n. 2 (1996). Short Stories (1992, a concerto for brass ensemble), and
Three Bagatelles for Brass Septet (1989). The first four have a similar
expression - rhythmically vital and unaffected works to which
Stravinsky's wind music undoubtedly has served as an important model -
whereas the last with its pastiche entertainment accents is a charming
tribute to the traditional Finnish brass septet. The melodically
beautiful Wedding Music for symphonic wind orchestra (1998) has become
something of a hit in the field, and is probably one of Linkola's most
frequently played works.

Among his other achievements, here reflecting his growing interest in
choral composition in the late 1990s, we find works such as Tangon
toinen kotimaa (Eng: The Second Homeland of Tango) for male choir and
accompanying group (1998, arranged for the male choir and orchestra in
2000), a suite for male choir to lyrics by Elmer Diktonius (1997), the
virtuoso jazz-coloured Mieliteko (1999, Eng. appr.: Fancy, can be
performed by a mixed choir or alternatively a male choir with
countertenors), and the euphorically captivating suite Primitive Music
(1998, written for the Tapiola Choir), in which Linkola, once more,
returns to his personal expression of globally coloured ethnic music.

We get a picture of the tremendous versatility and stylistic breadth of
Linkola's production if we also look at such pieces as Summer Tales
(1997) a suite for the kantele [Finnish zither-like folk instrument],
Chalumeaux Suite for clarinet ensemble (1990), and such pedagogical
pieces as Circles for two pianos (1994) and Two Miniatures for Piano
Trio (1991) - both commissioned for the chamber music contest of
Juvenalia Musical Institute.

A musical travel through time

Among Linkola's most recent works we find the Promotion Cantata (2000),
a work which shows that applied music - an important part of his
composer's profile - does not necessarily force its composer to
compromise his own artistic identity. The year 2000 also saw the
completion of Aikapeili, an hour-long song cycle for soprano, baritone
and orchestra.

Aikapeili (Eng: Time Mirror) is one of Linkola's most ambitious scores
to date. Here, he is perhaps more successful than ever in merging
elements and ingredients from different musical worlds and frames of
reference. But he does not, however, abandon his carefully structured,
symphony-coloured basic concept.

This work in sixteen movements is based on poetry spanning over a
thousand years, from the Icelandic Edda over Petrarca, Shakespeare and
Goethe to our time and could be compared with a resonant trip through a
millennium of western poetry, even if the musical outfit, which ranges
from "hits" in the musical genre to a complexly structured vocal and
orchestral setting, obviously represents our day. Aikapeili is yet
another step towards the "great synthesis" that Linkola's entire
artistry is all about, in many ways.

Unique accent

Jukka Linkola is an important voice in the polyphony of Finnish music
for his extreme versatility and his unique accent and expression, but
also for having been a sort of pioneer for younger generations (among
whom the most interesting name is probably the pianist and composer
Kirmo Lintinen, born in 1967 and, he too, with one foot in jazz and the
other in art music).

Linkola stood up for his integrity and refused to make compromises
during a time when social pressures for conformism and dogmatic
acquiescence were harder than we would perhaps think today. We have
reason to say that he was ahead of his time in the sense that the
border-crossing pluralism he professed has become quite acceptable
during the last ten years even in those circles which, at the time, were
the most fervent enemies of Linkola's ideals.

Like all good composers, Linkola has always written music that "looks
like himself". He has always believed in a direct and open-hearted
contact with the listener, a two-way communication that emanates from an
acceptance of the power of emotion and intuition, and he has always
sought for maximal honesty in his musical-emotional expression.

And, obviously, Linkola is continuously in the process of modifying and
developing his expression. He is not the kind of person who enjoys
resting on his laurels: he keeps on working, and a number of new works
for the stage and the orchestra are already underway. Many Linkola fans
are also eagerly expecting a concerto for his own instrument, the piano
and, of course, his contention to the solid Finnish tradition in the
field of symphonies. Moreover, the Taru auringon kullasta (Eng: Tale of
the Sunshine Gold), a children's musical written in 1999 and Häkkilintu,
2000 (Eng: The Cage Bird) a full-evening musical for a more mature
audience, are awaiting their premieres.

But what happened to the "Great Synthesis"? Well, it is keeping us
waiting - and maybe for good. It may never be achieved, or it may one
day turn out to be the harmony of all the contrasting elements of
Linkola's total production. Maybe the quest in itself is enough. Anyway,
Linkola's journey towards new unexplored domains goes on - and, in the
end, that's what's really important.

Mats Liljeroos

Mats Liljeroos is a musicologist and freelance writer on music living in
Helsinki. He is also a music critic for Hufvudstadsbladet, Finland's
largest Swedish-language daily in Helsinki.

Translation from Swedish: Magnus Gräsbeck

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