Leevi Antti Madetoja was a Finnish

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

 composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

.

Life and career

Born in Oulu

Oulu

Oulu is a city and municipality of inhabitants in the region of Northern Ostrobothnia, in Finland. It is the most populous city in Northern Finland and the sixth most populous city in the country. It is one of the northernmost larger cities in the world....

, he was the son of Antti Madetoja and Anna Hyttinen. His father emigrated to the United States to earn money for the family, but died of tuberculosis by the Mississippi river

Mississippi River

The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...

 never having seen his son.

Madetoja studied music in Helsinki

Helsinki

Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...

 (1906–1910), Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 (1910–1911), Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

 and Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

 (1911–1912). In 1913, he married the writer Hilja Onerva Lehtinen (1882–1972), who wrote under the pseudonym L. Onerva.

His music is strongly influenced by the traditional music of his home region, Ostrobothnia

Ostrobothnia (historical province)

Ostrobothnia, and , is a historical province of Finland to the west and north in Finland. It borders on Karelia, Savonia, Tavastia and Satakunda in the south, and on Västerbotten in Sweden, and Laponia in the north...

. His three symphonies are based on the legacy of Sibelian and Russian romanticism, Gallic clarity and folk elements.

The sombre Symphony Nº 2 was written during the civil war and could be described as a war symphony. Another fine work written in the same year is the elegant piano piece Kuoleman Puutarha (Garden of Death), dedicated to his brother, who had died during the war. His finest works are considered the opera The Ostrobothnians, the Third Symphony, Comedy Overture, the ballet Okon Fuoko, and his songs for male choir. His inspiration slowly dried up, though a fully scored fourth symphony was reportedly lost when his briefcase was stolen at a Paris railroad station in 1938. He was planning a violin concerto at the time he died, aged 60, from exhaustion, overwork and heart disease.

Works

• Op. 4 – Symphonic Suite (1909–10)
• Op. 5 – Suite of Incidental Music from the play "Chess" (1910)
• Op. 6 – Alcibiades: Incidental Music (1910)
• Op. 7 – Concert Overture (1911)
• Op. 8 – Nine Songs for male voice choir (1908–14)
• Op. 11 – Dance Vision (1911)
• Op. 13 – Six songs for mixed choir (1910)
• Op. 15 – Kullervo: symphonic poem (1913)
• Op. 18 – Sonatina for violin & piano, Op. 18 (1913)
• Op. 23 – Nine Songs for male voice choir (1912–16)
• Op. 29 – Symphony No. 1 (1914–16)
• Op. 33 – Eight Songs for male voice choir (1916–19)
• Op. 34 – Pastoral Suite (1916)
• Op. 35 – Symphony No. 2 (1916–18)
• Op. 37 – Aslak Smaukka: symphonic poem (1917)
• Op. 39 – Five Songs for male voice choir (1919–21)
• Op. 41 – Kuoleman puutarha (The Garden of Death) – suite for piano (1918–21)
• Op. 44 – Four Songs (1919)
• Op. 45 – The Ostrobothnians: opera in three acts (1918–23)
• Op. 46 – Väinämöinen sows the wilderness: symphonic poem (1920)
• Op. 49 – Five Songs (1920)
• Op. 51 – Lyric Suite for cello & piano (1922)
• Op. 52 – Ostrobothnian Suite (1923)
• Op. 53 – Comedy Overture (1923)
• Op. 55 – Symphony No. 3 in A major (1922–26)
• Op. 56 – De Profundis for male voice choir (1925)
• Op. 58 – Okon Fuoko: ballet in one act (1925–27)
• Op. 67 – Three Pieces for brass septet (1929)
• Op. 68 – Autumn: song cycle to poems by L. Oneva (1930)
• Op. 69 – Overture Fantasy for brass (1930)
• Op. 74 – Juha: opera in six tableaux (1934)
• Op. 77 – Rustic Scenes: Suite from the film score "Taistelu Heikkilän talosta" ("The Struggle for the Homestead") (1936)
• Op. 78 – A Wreath of Songs: cantata (1938)
• Op. 81 – Seven Choral Songs (1945–46)
• Op. 82 – Two Songs for mixed choir (1946)

In popular culture

An excerpt from the fourth movement of Madetoja's Symphony No. 3 is heard in the Finnish movie The Man Without a Past

The Man Without a Past

The Man Without a Past is a 2002 Finnish comedy-drama film directed by Aki Kaurismäki and starring Markku Peltola, Kati Outinen and Juhani Niemelä. It is the second installment in Kaurismäki's Finland trilogy, the other two films being Drifting Clouds and Lights in the Dusk...

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External links