Marjakangas: String Quartet No. 1. Havina Quartet

Lauri Marjakangas (s. 1994)
Jousikvartetto nro 1 ’Aarniometsä’ (2020-2021/2023)
String Quartet No. 1 ’Primeval Forest’
(Kantaesitys) (Premiere)
00:12 I Vieläkö laulat, helmipöllö? (Singeth Thou Still, o Boreal Owl?)
09:12 II ’Myrsky käy ja metsä pauhaa´(‘The Storm Goes and the Forest Roars’)
15:48 III Avohakkuu (Clear-cutting)
THE HAVINA STRING QUARTET
Maija Wesslund, violin
Heidi Ilmolahti, violin
Helinä Nissi, viola
Greta Ernesaks, cello
Recorded live at the Uuden Musiikin Lokakuu - Ostrobothnian Contemporary Music Festival in Oulu, Finland, 4 October 2023.
In the Kingdom of the Forest and the Boreal Owl
Lauri Marjakangas (born 1994, Kempele) has studied at Oulu Conservatory and Oulu University of Applied Sciences. He is currently studying composition at the Sibelius Academy under Tapio Tuomela. Marjakangas began his work as a composer, arranger, musician, and studio technician in the fields of rhythm and folk music, but has increasingly focused on composing art music.
His String Quartet No. 1 'Aarniometsä' (’Primeval Forest’) (2020-2021/2023),
the composer describes as follows:
The first movement of the quartet is dominated by the boreal owl, which until the last century was the most abundant bird of prey in our country. In the 1990s, its habitats, the old forests, began to be destroyed by clear-cutting. At the current rate, the boreal owl will become extinct within thirty years.
The third verse of Aleksis Kivi's poem Metsämiehen laulu, The Song of the Woodsman, was chosen as the inspiration for the second movement of the composition:
'The peace is wonderful here, and the battle is bold.
The storm rages and the forest roars,
The lighting strikes fire,
and the spruce falls with a crash.'
The third movement is also inspired by a quote:
'It was not a forest after all. We each found that out in our own way. From the helicopter, we could see distinct patches of green and brown amidst the blue ditch lines. The bridle paths lined with mossy spruce trees ended at a logging site or a sea of saplings. On the running trails, the forest provided needle tracks for only a few minutes before they broke off into a road, a settlement, or a clearing. Hunting trips were a stumble in the treetops of rummaged clear-cuts.
The forest that surrounded us in our daily lives was important, but something was missing. The experience fell short.'
The Forest After Us, Otava 2019 -