ABSTRACT
Joonas Kokkonen was a very important teacher in Finland, working first as a lecturer in music history and later as Professor of Composition at the Sibelius Academy from 1959 until 1963, when Erik Bergman succeeded him. In a study confined to instrumental music, Kokkonen is a curious choice but in fact his other works – most notably the four symphonies – are of great significance to any overview of twentieth-century Finnish music. Serialism for Kokkonen may be viewed as simply a further rationalization of an already highly chromatic idiom, taken to a level that is more intellectual and abstract than in the earlier music. Kokkonen's use of serialism is essentially 'symphonic': it is part of an aesthetic embracing logic and growth. He has a genuine, humanistic concern to communicate with his audience: 'music can never be something separate from life: it is produced specifically for living people.
