ABSTRACT
This chapter examines a small percentage of the vocal works from Joonas Kokkonen's oeuvre. While vocal music remained a part of Kokkonen's mature works, his interest turned towards larger ensembles, and the more intimate vocal forms that occupied a central position in his early years as a composer clearly took a secondary role to his expanded canvases of instrumental music. Like the Duo, there is a decreased reliance upon tertian sonorities in Illat, when compared with Kokkonen's earlier works from the 1940s and 1950s. Instead, a significant amount of the melodic material for both the vocal lines and piano is generated via intervallic associations—and in particular, from six- to eight-note motives. Kokkonen's 1963 Missa a cappella is a six-voice work for soprano, mezzo-soprano, alto, tenor, baritone and bass. The five movements of the composition contain the Ordinary of the mass—i.e., Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and Agnus Dei; a Latin text is used.
