Browsing by Author "Isolammi, Hanna"

Väinö Raitio (1891 1945) is a Finnish modernist composer whose 1920 s works consist mainly of tone poems for symphony orchestra. Raitio s early compositions were relatively well received by the critics and audience until the first public performance of his three-part orchestral work Antigone op. 23 (1921 1922). The highly negative reviews of Antigone caused Raitio to become considered as a composer of obscure and difficult style. In this thesis I analyze the thematics, form, orchestration and harmony of Raitio s Antigone. In addition to that I also take a review of 1920 s Finnish music modernism, Raitio s image as a composer, his composing style and the history of Antigone s reception. The analysis shows that Finnish 1920 s music modernism is generally seen as a mixture of traits of impressionism and French/Russian expressionism and that the works considered as modernistic were mainly received negatively. Raitio s Antigone s reviews in the course of time show that the modernistic and in it s time even cacophonous style becomes less difficult for the modern audience to approve. The analysis also shows that Antigone is a very typical Finnish modernistic work of the early 20th century. There are traits to be found of both impressionism and the composing style of the Russian expressionist Alexandr Scriabin. The thematics of Antigone are highly uniform, because nearly all the themes and motifs in the work have the same core motif as a basis. However, the uniform thematics together with unique form, dissonant harmony and thick orchestration cause lack of contrast, which in it s own way may have caused the composition s reputation as difficult to understand.