Aurora: Patrik Kleemola

Guitar works by Fernando Sor

Born in Barcelona, Fernando Sor (1778-1839) came from a family with a distinguished career in the army. From a very young age, however, Sor loved music and was particularly impressed by Italian opera music. When Fernando was 12, his father died and his widowed mother could not afford to continue her son’s musical studies in Barcelona. However, Fernando was offered a place to study at the famous choir of the Montserrat Monastery near Barcelona, where his studies included church music, composition and orchestral playing. He therefore moved to the Montserrat convent for several years, a period of his youth which he recalled with particular fondness in his memoirs, published in Paris towards the end of his life. However, the army became part of Fernando’s life immediately after Montserrat, when he applied to join the Spanish army to fight against the French revolutionary forces.

Although Sor played several instruments with great skill and later taught piano, singing and harmony, the guitar was with him from the start. Perhaps because of his varied musical background, he began to think of the guitar in a new way; more as a harmonic instrument rather than an accompaniment instrument and gradually he began to attract a great deal of attention for his exceptional guitar playing. Life in Spain, however, did not offer Sori the opportunity to work exclusively as a free artist; after Montserrat he also studied at the Royal Military Academy and later held various official posts.

French troops, under Napoleon’s orders, invaded Spain in 1808 and, either as a supporter of the ideals of the French Revolution or out of necessity, Sor eventually sided with the French. In 1813, however, the French troops were driven out of Spain and Sor, for his life, left with the French forces. In his diary, a Barcelona eyewitness recorded Sor saying goodbye to a friend in Barcelona: ‘When I arrive in France, I will take off these military badges, take up my guitar and with it I will also support myself and my family’. And so he did.

Never able to return to his native Spain and after long periods in London and Moscow enjoying great professional success, he spent the last years of his life in Paris with his daughter (his wife had died years earlier), publishing his compositions, teaching and performing in Parisian salons and concert halls as one of the most respected musicians. As well as being a guitarist, he was also known as a singer and, in London in particular, his new releases of arietta songs were highly anticipated events. His greatest successes, however, were in ballet; the ballet Cendrillon (Cinderella) was premiered in London and also at the opening of the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, but in Paris the work was performed no less than a hundred times in the 1820s and 30s. In the last years of his life, Sori suffered a great tragedy when his only daughter Caroline died in 1837, after which he performed only rarely and died two years later.

The Sonata op. 15 is an early work by Sori from the first years of the 19th century in Spain and the Fantaisie Villageoise op. 52 is a late period work from Paris in the 1830s. The spirit of the early Sonata is optimistically energetic and reminiscent of Italian orchestral music. The Fantaisie Villageoise (Country Fantasy), on the other hand, is a more psychologically complex and introspective work. The minor-key first movement, Andantino, is followed by a flute accompaniment and a boisterous dance, but it ends in the middle of a church bell chime, followed by the final movement, Prière (prayer). The monophonic themes of the last movement are followed by polyphonic chorale responses. Perhaps a kind of reminiscence for its composer of his childhood years in the monastery of Montserrat?

Manuel Ponce: Variations sur “Folia de España” et Fugue (1930)

Mexican Manuel Ponce (1882-1948) was one of the most important composers of his country and one of the key figures in the birth of Mexican musical nationalism. He was active on a wide range of musical fronts, not only as a composer but also as a scholar, teacher, critic, pianist and conductor. Although Ponce used folklore from his own country in his music, his compositional style was firmly rooted in the European tradition and he studied in Bologna and Berlin in the first decade of the 20th century, and as a mature composer in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s under Paul Dukas. The young composer Ponce also wrote the hit song Estrellita (1912), but, like Sibelius with the Valse triste, he considered this little song to be of little importance and sold it to a publisher for a small sum. Ponce’s output includes orchestral works, piano and vocal music, chamber music, folk song arrangements and a large output for guitar.

Mexican composer Manuel Ponce’s Variations and Fugue on the theme “La Folia” is one of the cornerstones of 20th century guitar repertoire. Ponce composed this monumental set of variations, which is demanding on the player, for the Spanish composer Andrés Segovia, and Segovia considered it one of the finest works ever composed for him. In December 1929 Segovia once again approached Ponce about a new guitar work, this time proposing that Ponce compose a variation on the well-known La folia theme. The correspondence suggests that the composer and the guitarist worked very closely together on the work.

Segovia gave the composer many concrete suggestions for different guitar textures, so that the work would present the widest possible range of expressive possibilities for the guitar based on different techniques. Thus, the work is a veritable cavalcade for the guitar, with idiomatic arpeggios, chordal rhythms, tremolo, fast scales, flute sounds, polyphonic saccades and stylistic references to the Baroque and the pre-20th century in general, but heard through Ponce’s recognisable late Romantic-Impressionist idiom. The concluding fugue is a brilliant display of the composer’s skill in creating expressive, tightly framed polyphony in the six strings of the guitar.

Although the work, when it appeared, was the culmination of the guitar repertoire composed up to that time (along with Villa-Lobos’ guitar etudes) and a veritable horn of plenty of technical resources, I personally feel that the work’s impact lies in its narrative drama, in the dramaturgical continuum of powerful images and events.

Mikko Heiniö: Guitar Sonata (2019)

Composer Mikko Heiniö (b. 1948) studied composition at the Sibelius Academy with Joonas Kokkonen (diploma in 1977) and Witold Szalonek in Berlin, and musicology at the University of Helsinki (PhD in 1984). Heiniö has composed nine piano concertos (including Hermes for soprano, piano and string orchestra (1994), Khora for piano and five percussionists (2001) and Moon Concerto for piano, mezzo-soprano and orchestra (2008)). His repertoire also includes three symphonies, the orchestral suite Song of Autumn, the violin concerto Alla madre, the organ concerto and four operas. Heiniö’s output also includes chamber and vocal music for various ensembles, including Sextet (2000) for singer and five instrumentalists. Mikko Heiniö has also composed several choral works.

He has been Professor of Musicology at the University of Turku 1985-2005, President of the Finnish Composers’ Association 1992-2010 and Vice President of Teosto 1999-2014. Heiniö has received numerous prizes, including the Tieto-Finlandia in 1997 and the Finland Prize in 2006, and was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music in 2004. In May 2023, Heiniö was appointed Honorary Composer of the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra.

Mikko Heiniö’s Guitar Sonata was premiered by Patrik Kleemola, who commissioned the work, at the Tampere Biennale in 2020. The composer says of the composition, “To be able to compose for guitar, firstly, I had to have an instrument in my arms and secondly, I had to collaborate with an inspiring and enthusiastic musician. Patrik Kleemola’s solo works Five Preludes (2013), Through Green Glass (2014), Mot natten for cello and guitar (2018) and, finally, Guitar Sonata (2019) are the result of his initiative.

The sonata is in four movements, but it also takes the form of a two-part sonata in that the second part immediately follows the first and the fourth part immediately follows the third. The first part (Intro) and the last part (Coda) run at the same tempo but the former as a kaleidoscopic and the latter as an unbroken ribbon. Similarly, the second movement (Rubato) consists of fragmentary moments, while the third movement (Rondo) is based on a slow blues. The Rubato is coloured by quarter-steps created by fingering between the saddle and the left hand, while the Rondo is characterised by slide-glissandos.”

Since the sonata’s completion, Heiniö and Kleemola have continued to work together. The Weitab (for guitar and piano) was premiered at the Turku Philharmonic’s ‘Heiniö 75’ anniversary concert, and Kleemola has already performed the Concerto for Guitar and Chamber Choir, which premiered at the Helsinki Knight’s Hall, four times with three different choirs. The new work for soprano, guitar and accordion will be premiered in November 2025 at the Sibelius Museum in Turku at the 30th anniversary concert of the Turku Guitar Society.