Erkki Melartin: Life Marked by Death, Music for Life

Sycheva Galina Sergeevna ORCID: 0000-0002-5963-1646 PhD in Art History Senior lecturer of the Department of Music History of the Rostov State Conservatory named after S. V. Rachmaninov 344002, Russia, Rostovskaya oblast', g. Rostov-Na-Donu, ul. Budennovskii, 23 sgs-music@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

The name of the Finnish composer, conductor, teacher, and public figure during the first half of the twentieth century Erkki Melartin (1875–1937), is extremely rare to find on the pages of domestic academic publications. One of the few works in Russian completely dedicated to the musician is a 1989 publication by G. Kopytova about Melartin's creative ties with the musical circles of St. Petersburg ^[2]. A few more brief mentions of the composer are available in encyclopedic publications and in articles by Yu. Tishkin ^[6], V. Nilova [4–5] and L. Kovnatskaya ^[1]. On the one hand, Russian musicologists' lack of attention can be explained: for many years, the central figure to whom works on Finnish music was devoted (in Russia and Europe) was Jean Sibelius. Many names of his contemporaries have faded in the shadow of the "national hero." Only almost half a century after the death of the outstanding composer, research began to appear on other musical figures in Finland, restoring a more objective picture of the development of musical culture. On the other hand, the uniqueness of Melartin’s works in Russian is surprising, given the number of his compositions, the scale of his activities, and their significance in the history of Finnish music. There is still no single article that reveals even the composer's biography, not to mention the nuances of style and genre specifics of his compositions. Filling in the gaps in Russian musicology related to the life and work of this musician is the purpose of this article.

Erkki (Erik Gustaf Oskarsson) Melartin was born on February 7, 1875, near the town of Käkisalmi (Priozersk, Leningrad region). Paintings of the incredible nature of Karelia and Finno-Ugric folklore, surrounded by which Erkki grew up, greatly influenced the future composer's worldview. The intonation of Karelian folk songs would become an integral part of Melartin's musical style.

At the age of sixteen, Melartin moved to Helsinki (now Helsinki), where he entered the Music Institute (1892–1899) in the composition class of Martin Wegelius (1846–1906). Acquaintance with an outstanding Finnish teacher (among his students: J. Sibelius, T. Kuula, A. Yarnefelt, etc.), the founder of the Helsinki Music Institute, was a turning point in Melartin's life. The teacher developed the young musician's compositional talent and saw in him a unique pedagogical gift, attracting him to classes with other students. Even though there were many talented young musicians among Wegelius' students, it was Melartin who fully became the successor and continuer of the teacher's pedagogical traditions. Later, this fact played an important role in the appointment of Melartin to the post of director of the Helsinki Music Institute.

After completing his studies at Helsinki, on Wegelius' recommendation, the future composer went to Vienna. Here he perfected his skills (from 1899 to 1901) under the guidance of the famous Austrian composer and teacher Robert Fuchs. During this period, Melartin's compositional handwriting continued to acquire individual features. It was in Vienna that he first became acquainted with the music of Gustav Mahler, which had a huge influence on his own style. Until the end of his life, Melartin remained an ardent propagandist of Mahler's work in Scandinavia. The first performance of the works of the great symphonist in Finland also took place thanks to Melartin: in 1909 in Vyborg, he conducted Andante from G. Mahler's Symphony No. 2 ^{[1, p. 106]}.

In 1901, the young composer returned back to Helsinki, where he began teaching composition and music history at the Music Institute. His work at the educational institution continued until 1906, but it was interrupted by a sharp deterioration in health. The reason for this was a nervous shock caused by the news of Wegelius' death in March of the same year. It is worth noting that Melartin's health literally became both a blessing and a curse for him. His path to professional music began after the doctors' conclusion about his impending death received in his youth. The diagnosis left the young man with no more than two years to live. Then the young man asked his father to let him go to the capital, where he would devote the remaining days to music lessons ^[9]. However, the awareness of the proximity of death, as the composer himself noted, was the best incentive for an active life and creativity. Already in adulthood, in one of the letters to his close friend, Helma Krohn, the daughter of the outstanding Finnish writer and linguist Julius Krohn, Melartin wrote that every day he was haunted by the thought memento mori ("remember death"). But she did not bring negative colors into his life. On the contrary, she made every moment more valuable and richer ^[13].

After leaving the lecturer position at the Institute, Melartin immersed himself in conducting. This activity allowed the composer not only to realize himself but also to engage in musical education. He performed in the cities of Finland, often visiting his little homeland—Kexholm. The composer accompanied his series of concerts that he conducted with historical comments about musicians and epochs (according to the type of historical concerts by Alexander Ziloti). For Finland at that time, such a format of performances was a completely new phenomenon and received a warm response from listeners.

In 1908, Melartin moved to Vyborg. He was offered to lead the orchestra of the Vyborg Friends of Music Society. The history of this collective deserves special attention: it was founded in 1860 by a graduate of the Leipzig Conservatory, the famous Finnish composer Richard Faltin. In different years, along with Melartin, he was led by: Levi Madetoya, Toivo Kuula, Armas Yarnefelt, Theodor Sorensen, and Boris Sirpo. The team consisted of amateur musicians from among the townspeople (some even without special education) who sincerely honored the musical art. The performance level of the orchestra was so high that it successfully toured. From 1908 to 1911, together with the Vyborg musical collective, Melartin visited many countries in Europe, as well as North Africa. It was during these years that he met with St. Petersburg musicians and, first of all, with Alexander Ziloti, thanks to whom the premiere of the Finnish author's works for the Russian public took place ^{[2, pp. 106–107]}. In addition, with the support of Vyborg philanthropist Karl Theofron Hellstrom, the composer opened an orchestra school in the city ^[15]. The years of leadership of the educational institution in Vyborg became a preparatory stage for the composer to work as director of the Music Institute in Helsinki, which he was offered to head in 1911.

In the following years, the composer's life was closely connected with the capital and administrative activities at the institute. Under Melartin’s leadership, the educational institution received not only the status of a conservatory (since 1924) but also pan-European recognition. This became possible due to the reforms carried out by the composer. He expanded the number of professional training areas, opening the department of opera singing in 1912, the rhythmic class of Émile Jaques-Dalcroze. By 1914, the institute had the opportunity to study all the orchestra's instruments. This allowed Melartin to create a student symphony orchestra at the university (in 2016, the Sibelius Music Academy celebrated the centenary of this collective), with which he conducted classes himself. A department for training school music teachers was also opened (in 1921), and in 1926 a military music faculty appeared ^{[7, p. 377]}. All this has created fertile ground for the further development of musical life in Finland.

However, not only did Melartin's activity as the head of the Institute play a role in the formation of Finnish musical culture of the twentieth century, but his pedagogical work is also of considerable importance. He has brought up a whole galaxy of musicians who are the personification of the Finnish school of composition of the twentieth century: Yrjö Kilpinen, Ilmari Hannikainen, Aarre Merikanto, Elmer Diktonius, Uuno Klami, Sukho Ranta, Vyane Raitio, and Helvi Leiviskä. In 1928, Melartin was among the initiators of the Finnish Composers' Association "Teosto," whose goal was to support young musicians and protect their copyrights. He managed Teosto until 1937.

However, Melartin considered composing to be his main activity in life. The legacy left by the composer is 189 opuses, with more than 1,300 titles ^[11]. It impresses not only with its quantity but also with its genre diversity: opera and ballets, six symphonies, orchestral and chamber music, more than three hundred piano works and the same number of vocal ones, songs for children, as well as two hundred treatments of Karelian folklore. Melartin's efficiency amazed his contemporaries. Jean Sibelius wrote after the premiere of the opera Aino: "Melartin! I admire his way of working! How to get to this, ‘not a day without a line!’ What a technique!" ^{[13, p. 11]} This is despite the large-scale pedagogical, administrative work and serious chronic health problems. In one of his letters, he wrote that doctors forbade him to compose music, but he locked himself in his office and secretly continued to work ^[14].

The musical language of Melartin's compositions is multifaceted. It is a complex, where the intonations of folk songs and dances of Karelia are clearly heard, the features of Romanticism, impressionism, and expressionism are drawn, the influence of Mahler, Edvard Grieg, Anton Bruckner, Claude Debussy, Richard Wagner, Richard Strauss, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and Alexander Scriabin is felt. However, this similarity with something has no pronounced edges. Melartin does not follow the path of blind imitation. He skillfully rethinks and assimilates the elements he likes in his sound world, which creates his own unique style.

Among his creations, chamber instrumental and vocal compositions have a numerical advantage. It was they who made him known to the general public in Finland. Most works were published during the composer's lifetime and often heard in concert programs. Often Melartin wrote vocal compositions, focusing on specific performers who ordered a new repertoire from him. For example, the orchestral song "Marjatta" was created by the order of Aino Akte, an outstanding Finnish opera singer of the early twentieth century ^[12]. She warmly supported the composer's work, performing his compositions in almost every performance and even dedicating entire concert programs to his music.

Melartin's vocal compositions are very diverse: there are light, uncomplicated melodies that captivate with folk intonations and are technically complex (both for a vocalist and an accompanist) and dramatic works. The poetic basis of his works was not only the texts of Swedish, Danish, Italian, and Finnish poets (especially Eino Leino, Finnish poet, novelist, playwright and, translator, reformer of the Finnish literary language) but also fragments of scripture, poetry by Sappho, and even poems by the Nobel laureate of 1913, the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore.

Melartin considered the symphony to be the center of his compositional creativity. He dreamed of creating nine symphonies like Ludwig van Beethoven but completed only six. The seventh and eighth symphonies required deep editing, and the composer did not have time to finish the ninth. During the composer’s lifetime, only the first three symphonies were performed (in 1903, 1905, and 1907, respectively). However, the most original in style and design were the later works. In them, Melartin's skill as a symphonist was revealed in many ways. The Fourth Symphony (1913) paints pictures of Finnish nature, contains vocal parts, and ends with a majestic anthem. The Fifth Symphony demonstrates the composer's polyphonic skill, which culminates in the finale in a magnificent fugue. The Sixth Symphony (1935) became a reflection of the philosophical views of the author, who was seriously interested in Buddhism: the composer depicts the four elements (earth, water, air, fire), which in Eastern religions are integral components of the integral soul. Although Melartin's style is most often attributed to the late romantic, in the last completed symphony, he showed himself as an innovator, using uncharacteristic techniques of musical language (clusters). Also, in his symphonies, the influence of the music of Gustav Mahler and Carl Nielsen is felt.

Melartin also made a considerable contribution to the development of Finnish musical theater: his opera Aino (1909), based on the plot from the Finnish epic Kalevala, became the first national opera. In it, the composer acts as the heir to the musical ideas of Richard Wagner ^[3]. The first national Finnish ballet, The Blue Pearl (1930), also belongs to Melartin (libretto by Kaarlo Eronen and director George Ge). The fairy tale ballet was the composer's last major work.

Melartin left a colossal epistolary legacy. His extensive correspondence with many cultural figures of that time totals more than a thousand (!) addressees and numerous personal records that have not yet been systematized.

Individual touches to the portrait of this extraordinary personality can be called his literary work (a collection of aphorisms, Credo ^[10]), passion for theosophy and philosophy, painting (during his lifetime, two authors' exhibitions of the composer's paintings took place), publishing (creating unique covers for printing houses), gardening, photography, collecting. All his achievements and colossal effectiveness in any kind of activity that he was engaged in lay in the thirst for life and the desire to do a lot. He wrote: "Now it seems that all these [years of life – G. S.] are just a gift to me ..." ^[13]

Melartin, "along with Sibelius, was awarded a lifetime pension from the Finnish Senate, and with R. Kajanus represented Finnish music at the First Nordic Music Festival in Copenhagen" ^{[1, p.111]}. However, despite all the merits, after the composer died in 1937, his name sank into oblivion for several decades, even at home. Today in Finland, Melartin's music is experiencing a rebirth. Created by Tuire Ranta-Mayer in 1997, the Erkki Melartin Society is actively researching his compositional and literary heritage, publishing sheet music, recording compositions, and popularizing his music among European listeners.