Vaikutteet, vastaanotto ja tulkintamahdollisuudet

Erkki Melartinin Marjatta, legenda sopraanolle ja orkesterille

Abstract

Erkki Melartin (1875−1937) was a Finnish composer and conductor at the beginning of the 20th century. He was also a long-term director of the Helsinki Conservatory (today known as the Sibelius Academy), a teacher of music theory and composition, and a leading figure of several professional organizations. While performing these activities, he closely followed musical trends in central Europe, Denmark and Sweden.

This article accounts for his Kalevala-based tone-poem Marjatta op. 79, a legend for soprano and orchestra. It was completed in 1914, exactly one year after Luonnotar op. 70 by Sibelius. Marjatta was dedicated to the great Finnish opera diva Aino Ackté, who originally had contacted the composer in hope of receiving a new large orchestral song for her repertoire. She also premiered it inVyborg, Helsinki and Stockholm.

The article is predominantly a reception study of Marjatta. The primary sources shed new light on the genesis of it. Furthermore, reviews of the work and their connotations have been examined thoroughly. An analytical approach reveals that Marjatta is an intrepid and unique work among the contemporary musical oeuvre at the time in Finland. It can be considered as a counterpart of Luonnotar, but also a sister work of Melartin’s opera Aino (1909). In addition, the article prevails the ideological and socio-historical trends behind the work.