Heikki Suolahti

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Heikki Suolahti.jpg

Heikki Suolahti (born February 2, 1920 in Helsinki ; † December 27, 1936 there ) was a Finnish composer .

Live and act

Suolahti grew up in a family home where music played the dominant role. His father was a doctor who treated the staff of the Finnish National Opera in Helsinki. His mother Anna Forssell was a well-known violinist. Suolahti is said to have hummed melodies before he could speak. He is said to have admired Richard Wagner's music , built a children's orchestra with his playmates and dreamed of becoming an opera composer.

From 1929, when he was nine years old, Suolahti studied piano and composition at the Helsinki Conservatory while attending school . His main teacher was Arvo Laitinen , who was valued in Finland as an important composer, but also known as “probably the most stubborn National Socialist among Finnish musicians”: “In 1964, this Horst Wessel dedicated a choral work that was not performed. At the same time, Laitinen worked on the trilogy 'Mein Führer', which (luckily) was not finished before his death. "

The teenager Suolahti composed numerous pieces of music, including a symphony, a piano concerto, sacred music and an unfinished opera. In 1935 Suolahti traveled to Germany, where he visited the sites associated with Richard Wagner in Bayreuth and a Lohengrin Festival in Cologne . The following year he died of a ruptured appendix at the age of 16 . Up until then he had not heard any of his works performed. The first performance of his pieces took place on the occasion of his funeral by the Helsinki City Orchestra and the singer Gertrude Wichman.

Aftermath

Suolahti's works came to the knowledge of the professional world and a broad public only after his death. His Sinfonia piccola, composed in 1935, and some of his songs were premiered in February 1938 under Tauno Hannikainen. Since Jean Sibelius was enthusiastic about this symphony and many other contemporary musicians appreciated Suolahti's compositions, his works were regularly performed in Finland and the United States.

literature

  • Mikko Heinö, Pakka Jalkanen, Seja Lappalainen, Erkki Salmenhaara: Suomen säveltäjiä . Helsinki: Otava 1994
  • Ruth-Esther Hillila, Barbara Blanchard Hong: Historical Dictionary of the Music and Musicians of Finland . Greenwood Publishing Group 1997 ( ISBN 9780313277283 )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Life dates and career according to Ruth-Esther Hillila, Barbara Blanchard Hong: Historical Dictionary of the Music and Musicians of Finland . Greenwood Publishing Group 1997 ( ISBN 9780313277283 ) pp. 390-391
  2. ↑ Tomi Mäkelä: Saariaho, Sibelius and others - New Heroes of the New North: The Last 100 Years of Music and Education in Finland . Georg Olms Verlag 2014 ( ISBN 9783487151281 ), p. 112
  3. ↑ Sulho Ranta (ed.): Suomen säveltäjiä. Helsinki: WSOY 1945, p. 739.
personal data
SURNAME Suolahti, Heikki
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Soulathi, Heikki
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Finnish composer
DATE OF BIRTH February 2, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Helsinki
DATE OF DEATH December 27, 1936
Place of death Helsinki