Osmo-Tapio Räihälä was surprised at how much attention his book on contemporary music has received, as contemporary art music has otherwise been badly marginalized in the media.
“Book opens a new world, not by pushing me in through the door alone, but by walking hand in hand with me. ”
With these words, the winner of the Finlandia Prize for Nonfiction was chosen this year Katri Makkonen their choice of winner, Osmo Tapio Räihälä records Why contemporary music is so difficult (Athens).
In his book, Räihälä talks about the essence of contemporary art music and gives the reader a glimpse into meeting the latest music. His writing style is chatty and reminiscent of a radio show, the narrator of which leads the listener to new things.
Räihälä has done a lot of radio programs for YLE, and his experience with the spoken language is part of his lyrics. Räihälä’s work as a contemporary music composer and the preparation of a wide range of musical texts and programs bring expertise.
“If a person has ever listened to the radio programs I made, notice that the style is free, striving out of the box,” says Osmo Tapio Räihälä.
“I’ve always tried to approach people so that the reader or listener doesn’t feel like he’s being looked at somehow von oben. The harder things you talk about, the simpler it really is worth talking about. I was not really trying to be a simple expression, but rather trying to show with a certain bitterness that there is more to talking about than just frowning. ”
Traditionally those wrinkles are due to the fact that contemporary art music is really perceived as difficult. In the new music, for example, the world of harmony of classical music, which was developed by the composers for hundreds of years and to which the listeners became accustomed, has been largely abandoned.
At the same time, in addition to the chord structure, the traditional concept of tonal harmony has defined many other features of the compositions, such as the form structures to which listeners have become accustomed over the centuries and which they are even unaware of. In the latest music, the listener often does not have such a safety net, and the principles of music may vary from work to work.
“One important thesis in my book is that the perceived difficulty of contemporary art music is because the listener doesn’t know where we’re going and where we’re going – or if I’m going anywhere. In the book, I comfort you that you don’t even need to know, you can just throw in it and think about how this feels. That’s the essential thing: a work of art is always experience or knowledge. Nothing else really matters. ”
Räihälä has piled up World War II as the frontier of contemporary music and considers all the music composed before that to be classical music. Of course, he is also aware of the inaccuracy of drawing precise boundaries, as there have been both traditional and reformist musicians in all eras. In fact, the old and the new usually overlap.
“I had to draw even an apparent boundary so I could define what was being talked about. My idea is that when talking though [1900-luvun alun modernisteista] Arnold Schönberg or Anton Webern, then there is no more talk of contemporary music, because it is already historical music. In my ears, they belong to the continuum of classical music. ”
Osmo Tapio Räihälä (b. 1964) has worked in Finnish music life in a variety of roles. At the turn of the 1990s, he wrote for some time in Turku Sanomat and Helsingin Sanomat, and at that time he also began his career as a composer.
In the late 1990s, he was founding the Uusinta Chamber Orchestra and the Uusinta sheet music publishing house established in connection with it. He worked for the Broadcasting Corporation for 12 years and has been a freelance composer since 2016.
“It has surprised me that when a subject like this, such as contemporary art music, has been badly marginalized in the media and sometimes completely darkened, this book has surprisingly received a lot of attention and publicity,” says Räihälä.
“So, a little amused, I laughed at the fact that a person composes music of his age that doesn’t interest anyone, and then when you write a book about that muse, suddenly everyone is interested.”
Read more: Why is contemporary music so difficult, asks composer Osmo Tapio Räihälä and also gives an answer – However, even the Beatles can help start understanding
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