HKO Screen - Minna Leinonen: Vimma
Minna Leinonen: Vimma
Minna Leinonen is a Finnish composer born in 1977. Of her contribution, Vimma (Frenzy), to the Helsinki Variations cycle commissioned by the HPO she writes: “I set out to find inspiration from different sources, trying to get to know new role models. Finally, the life and music of folk musician Kreeta Haapasalo hit me. I never cease to be amazed by the frenzy, tenacity and fire that drove the tireless mother of 11 children to tour the Grand Duchy of Finland and neighbouring countries as a performing artist.”
A song by Haapasalo lamenting the difficult fate of the artist in the early 1850s especially touched Leinonen at a time when the recent pandemic lockdowns were making it difficult for artists to earn a living. The composition exists in several versions; it had never occurred to Haapasalo that a composition should have a final form and owner. The song appears throughout the work as subjects chopped into small pieces. “I also wanted to bring out the melody (or a variant of it) as such in the middle of the piece, slightly coloured, as an arrangement that meets continuity,” Leinonen says.
Janne Nisonen, conductor
Minna Leinonen is a Finnish composer born in 1977. Of her contribution, Vimma (Frenzy), to the Helsinki Variations cycle commissioned by the HPO she writes: “I set out to find inspiration from different sources, trying to get to know new role models. Finally, the life and music of folk musician Kreeta Haapasalo hit me. I never cease to be amazed by the frenzy, tenacity and fire that drove the tireless mother of 11 children to tour the Grand Duchy of Finland and neighbouring countries as a performing artist.”
A song by Haapasalo lamenting the difficult fate of the artist in the early 1850s especially touched Leinonen at a time when the recent pandemic lockdowns were making it difficult for artists to earn a living. The composition exists in several versions; it had never occurred to Haapasalo that a composition should have a final form and owner. The song appears throughout the work as subjects chopped into small pieces. “I also wanted to bring out the melody (or a variant of it) as such in the middle of the piece, slightly coloured, as an arrangement that meets continuity,” Leinonen says.
Janne Nisonen, conductor
