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Einar Englund
Einar Englund (1916-1999), composer, pianist, composition
teacher and music critic, studied composition and orchestration
at the Sibelius Academy. Recommended by Jean Sibelius
he continued his studies at the Tanglewood Music Center under
Aaron Copland. Englund was a great concert pianist
and skilled improviser, which influenced his style possibly
more than anything else; his works are the product of true
and practical musicianship.
Einar Englund's brightest youth was spent at the front and
he once said that all his music is in some way about the war.
Englund entered the Finnish musical scene in 1946 with his
first symphony ("War Symphony") and since
then favoured grand forms. His oeuvre includes seven symphonies
and six concertos, among them the popular Piano Concerto
No. 1 dating from 1955 and the Flute Concerto from
1985. In the late 70s Englund became interested in chamber
music and composed also works for solo instruments.
Englund's musical language was, in his own words, based on
sweeping terms and great symphonic lines. He built his works
on themes, clear harmonies and polyphonic thinking. As a composer
he was a neo-classicist, whose music based on tonality and
included long, compact and even romantic melodic lines side
by side with spicy dissonances, energetic rhythm and vigorous
orchestration. |
