ABSTRACT

Magnus Lindberg has probably received more critical acclaim than any other Finnish composer of his generation. For someone writing music of uncompromising modernity this is significant, as achieving a balance between the innovatory and the popular is rare. Lindberg is on record as disliking the fractured nature of so-called postmodernism, preferring to study Stravinsky – a composer with whom there is a strong affinity. At a pre-compositional stage and with the aid of a computer, Lindberg has generated a system of harmonic organization that combines two aesthetics: serial and spectral. In music of the complexity, Lindberg's assurance of a 'clear approach to form' is something to be seized upon as offering a guide to the perceptual and structural processes of Aura. In writing a kind of homage to Witold Lutoslawski, with the attendant practicalities of a broad, four-movement conception, Lindberg seeks to redefine matters of form and content.