Ensemble ja kamari (kaikki infot)

Mirabilia Naturae (Wonders of Nature) is a praise of nature and its amazing phenomena. Clarinet, cello and piano paint musical impressions of land, sea and air. The idea of a spider (Erigone atra) flying across an ocean using the electric fields of the earth's atmosphere would be straight out of a storybook if it weren't a scientific fact. The white-spotted puffer fish (Arothron hispidus) creates beautiful symmetrical works of art on the sea floor to attract females. Mirabilia Naturae also classifies as natural wonders, for example, a common crow (Corvus corone), which is one of the most intelligent creatures in the bird world. The last movement Silva means forest. It takes the listener from the hectic city to the peace of the natural forest. It is a statement for the local nature and its diversity and it contains references to several endangered species.

I composed the first movement Asperatus in 2019 as an independent work. The title Asperatus refers to very dramatic looking cloud formation called asperatus undulatus. Soon after the piece was finished, I decided to continue the work into a suite with several movements and five years later the chance to do it finally occured to me. I completed the suite with four new movements in spring 2024 with the support of The Alfred Kordelin Foundation. The work is commissionned by TampereRaw, for whom the piece is also written.

"Given in absorbing first performance by Reetta Näätänen, clarinet, Maija Juuti, cello, and Ville Hautakangas, piano, Hammo’s Mirabilia naturae is in five movements, its 27-minute arch encompassing – as suggested by the composer’s chosen title – a series of small but ever so vivid portraits of nature, encapsulating the universal in the particular.

Initially conceived as standalone work in 2019, the Asperatus opening movement is rooted in cloud-like musical formations, which then permute in organic manner, giving rise to sounding imagery of dark-hued mysticism. As ever with the composer’s designs, the material is assigned to the instrumental ensemble in appealingly idiomatic manner, transforming the trio into musical story-tellers par excellence.

Keeping up with the scheme, the ensuing four movements – written in the spring of 2024 to complete the cycle – excel in transcribing further natural phenomena into sonorous architecture of both instantaneous intensity and lasting meditative quality. Thus, Hammo’s musical narrative invites the listener to marvel a small spider crossing the Atlantic in the course of the travelling music of Erigone atra, followed by ornamented textures of Arothron hispdus, recalling a pufferfish decorating the seabed in courtship and display. Corvus corone fourth movement pays witty homages to crows, while the Silva finale wanders into the woodland realm, providing the trio with engrossing amalgams of onomatopoeia and mood-painting, bringing Mirabilia naturae to its profoundly tranquil and tangibly lifelike close."

(Jari Kallio, ”AIM - Adventure in Music” September 23, 2024)

Mirabilia_Naturae

From Silence (2024)

(7') for violin and piano

Premiere: Korsholma Music Festival, July 25, 2024. Anna-Liisa Bezrodny, violin and Diana Ketler, piano.

Commissioned by: Korsholma Music Festival

The starting point of From Silence is the fragile and delicate tones of the violin and piano, which appear as simple lyrical gestures, fluttering tremolos, and hymn-like melody. In the first half of the piece, the music opens up different views into silence and searches for its direction. Ultimately, the path forward is found through sudden runs and sigh gestures. The music has tensed energy that is just waiting to be released. The violin's furious outburst is inevitable. At the end, the circle closes as the music returns to a dreamlike mystery.

From Silence is a sigh for peace and quiet in a troubled world. It is commissioned by the Korsholm Music Festival and composed with the support of the Alfred Kordelin Foundation.

From_Silence

Souvenirs

Souvenirs (2021)

(16’) for cello and guitar

Commissioned by: Hanna Kilpinen and Olli Hyyrynen

Space Reflections

Space Reflections (2020)

(24’) for solo guitar and ensemble (solo flute, offstage guitar and offstage flute)

Premiere: Musiikkitalo, Organo Hall, Helsinki December 19, 2020. Andrzej Wilkus, guitar; Martta Jämsä, flute; Aapo Järvinen, flute; Kasperi Leponiemi, guitar

Commissioned by: Andrzej Wilkus

The starting point for Space Reflections was set off in collaboration with the guitarist Andrzej Wilkus who had commissioned the piece. Andrzej presented me the idea of a work in which a guitar soloist plays on stage, but another instrument comments on the soloist’s playing from the audience's side. Therefore, from the very beginning the idea was to make the impression of space and distance a central element of the work. I still wanted to expand this idea so that in addition to the solo guitar, there would be a total of three players in different parts of the hall. The solo guitar is clearly a soloist who plays in the work almost all the time. A solo flute is set in dialogue with it. Both of these instruments again have their own echoers: an offstage guitar and an offstage flute. Their sounds are distanced from the solo instruments. The impression of space, reflections and echoes, as well as the use of space also in time, are the themes of the work. The duration of the work is about 24 minutes and it is divided into three movements.

I was just finishing my compositional work at Space Reflections when the corona pandemic began in March 2020. Although the pandemic didn’t really affect my compositional solutions, coincidentally and unconsciously, the work became some kind of description of the corona era. Distances between people still trying to communicate with each other, safety distances, but nevertheless the pursuit of intimacy are manifested in music. While it is always too easy to explain things in retrospect, I can’t help but compare the three-part dramaturgy of the work to the psychological effects of the corona period: the confusion and fighting spirit of the first movement, the paralysis and silence of the second movement, and the hopefulness of the third movement.

Ja kun sataa

Ja kun sataa… (And When It Rains...) (2020)

(8’) for flute and guitar. Based on a poem by Johanna Venho

Commissioned by: Johanna Kärkkäinen and Olli Hirvanen

Published on the album A Due - Finnish Music and Poetry

The duo Johanna Kärkkäinen and Olli Hirvanen commissioned a duo piece from me which was to be based on a poem by the author Johanna Venho. One rainy day in January, I borrowed all of Venho's poetry collections from the Tampere Metso Library and started wading through them. Quickly it began to seem that the collection Tässä on Valo (Here is Light) was the most suitable for composing. From this collection a poem And when it rains was selected completely intuitively and the choice proved to be right as the compositional work started.

And when it rains was constantly in my mind when composing. The basic mood about a worried mother and a playful child, the dramaturgy of the poem and the growing intensity towards the end found their place in my composition. The repetitive elements of the poem produce a rhythm to the text. As a composer, it was easy to grasp a text that is like music in itself.

Asperatus (2019)

(5’) for clarinet, cello and piano

Premiere: Tampering Festival, Tampere, August 24,2019. Tampering Ensemble: Andreas Heino, clarinet; Katri Antikainen, cello ja Tuomas Salokangas, piano

Commissioned by: Tampering ry

The word asperatus refers to a cloud formation, in Latin for undulatus asperatus, which at the time of composing the work was the most recent addition to the named types of clouds. It received its official recognition in 2017. The very dramatic-looking formation with its heavy cloud masses hanging down is apt to inspire the composer. The light shimmering through the formation creates stunning colors and contrasts with an otherwise gloomy mass. The undulating texture in the low register of the instruments, the rushing patterns, but on the other hand the bright flashes of light from the higher register also define the work. In English, the Latin word asperatus means roughness, which also describes the musical characters that appear in my work.

Asperatus

A battuta

A battuta (2018)

(13’) for ensemble (fl, sax, gtr, perc)

Premiere: Helsinki April 6, 2019. Kaaos Ensemble: Martta Jämsä, flute, Anna-Sofia Anttonen, baritone saxophone, Mikael Rechardt, guitar and Jerry Piipponen, percussion

Commissioned by: Kaaos Ensemble

A battuta is like a machine that hisses, fizzes, puffs and huffs, pulsing itsÂ repetitive polyrhythmic patterns with ever-accelerating intensity. At times, it gets softer, even human features, and sinks into its dreamy thoughts, until towards the end, the primitive beats that constantly gather more and more wild rounds, take the work to its breathtaking climax. The work, which proceeds generally in terms of rhythm, reflects the life fulfilled by the continuous requirements. The demand to keep up with the pace is ruthless. The work is dedicated to Kaaos Ensemble.

Pieni merenneito

The Little Mermaid (2017)

(38’) musical drama for ensemble (2 fl, cl, bcl, vl, vlc, pno) and live electronics for Lisa Pälikkö's libretto. Based on H. C. Andersen's original story

Premiere: Helsinki Conservatory Concert Hall, May 19, 2017. Students of Käpylä Music Institute and Timo Kurkikangas (electronics). Direction and choreography by Lisa Pälikkö, music direction by Hanna Kinnunen

Commissioned by: Käpylä Music Institute

Hum of the wild

Hum of the wild (2016)

(8’) for ensemble (2 fl, ob, cl, bsn, hn, tpt, tba, 1 perc, gtr, pno, acc, 2 vl, vla, vlc, cb)

Premiere: The concert "Workers Union" organized by Tampering Society, Tampere, August 26, 2016. Tampering Ensemble, cond. Janne Valkeajoki

Commissioned by: Tampering ry

Hum of the wild was composed in summer 2016 for a concert called Workers Union in Tampere. The title of the concert refers to Louis Andriessens piece and the concert consisted of compositions that are based on social issues. Nature values in general is the most important topic for me and I wanted to write a piece about that. Hum of the wild speaks out on retaining the diversity of nature. I decided to use every instrument of Tampering Ensemble to describe diversity. The music has a lot of dense material on surface but the changes of harmony are relatively slow.

Gravitated (2016)

(11 ') for string trio (vl, vla, vlc)

Premiere: The Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra's Afternoon of the Fauns Concert Series, Tampere, March 20, 2016. Hanna Parviainen, violin; Anni Tiainen-Hammo, viola and Elina Rouvali, cello

Commissioned by: Anni Tiainen-Hammo

Gravitated (2016) is composed as a modern equivalent of Franz Schubert's string trio in b flat major D 471. The playful and virtuosic work deals with fragments borrowed from Schubert's string trio and shapes them into music for the 21st century. These fragments are hidden in the sliding and swaying gestures, noises and pulsation, but they peek out more and more clearly in the second half of the work. Towards the end, the softening music and especially the blurred harmony that ends the piece, seem to prepare the listener to go back in time. In the premiere in the ”Afternoon of Fauns” concert series in Tampere, Gravitated preceded the performance of Schubert’s string trio, but it can equally be performed as an independent work.

Gravitated

Seeking flow

Seeking flow (2015)

(10 ') for flute, bass clarinet, guitar and accordion

Premiere: TampeRinging Festival, Tampere, August 20, 2015. Tampering Ensemble: Jenni Halonen, flute; Maija Anttila, bass clarinet; Ilkka Hammo, guitar and Sami Majamäki, accordion.

Commissioned by: Tampering Society

Surface

Surface (2014)

(8 ') for violin, viola, cello and percussion

Premiere: Music Time Festival, Viitasaari, July 6, 2014. Ensemble recherche: Melise Mellinger, violin; Barbara Maurer, viola; Åsa Ãkerlund, cello; Christian Dierstein, percussion

As I began to compose this work, my thought was for the first time to become properly familiar with extended playing techniques and to think about the possibilities they could bring to my music. My goal was to strive for a rich world of sounds by combining pitches with noise. Although the title of the piece, Surface, materialized only at the end of composing, the idea of a surface formed by pitch levels and noises was included from the beginning. My thought was to move on both sides of the surface, in places to dive into the noises, sometimes rise above the surface to the world of pitches. In addition, an interesting idea was to stay on the border where pitches and noises would appear on an equal footing. The metaphor of crossing the border and diving under the surface, which may reveal even new surprising things, is also present in the work in a textural and dramaturgical sense. Above the surface one can only get a hint of what lies beneath. The work was created in collaboration with the ensemble recherche and is dedicated to it.

Chimères des Songes (2013)

(7 ') for saxophone quartet and piano

Premiere: Rencontres Musicales du Kreiz Breizh Festival, Rostrenen, France, August 2, 2013. Jonathan Rautiola, soprano saxophone; Mai Toyama, alto saxophone; Frantz Gandubert, tenor saxophone; Makoto Hondo, baritone saxophone and Matthieu Acar, piano

Commissioned by: Joonatan Rautiola

Chimeres

Fanfare (2013)

(1 ') for trumpet and horn

Premiere: Composition workshop concert in Porvoo Summer Sounds, June 29, 2013. Musicians of the Avanti! Chamber orchestra

Fanfare

Logo

Logo (2013)

(5 ') for ensemble (picc, cl, hn, tpt, vl, vla, vlc, cb)

Premiere: Composition workshop concert in Porvoo Summer Sounds, June 29, 2013. Musicians of the Avanti! Chamber Orchestra

Duo Partita

Duo Partita (2012)

(8 ') for alto saxophone and accordion

Premiere: Ears Open 35 Festival, Helsinki, October 29, 2012. Joonatan Rautiola (alto saxophone) and Sami Majamäki (accordion)