Finley and Lintu show Saariaho’s heart and soul.

Dazzling Saariaho performed with splendour by Jennifer Koh.

Australians make a strong case for Saariaho’s well-travelled oratorio, but can’t entirely overcome the work's curiously dissatisfying nature.

Director Imara Savage talks about the challenges of staging the Australian premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s strange, contradictory oratorio about the life of French philosopher and mystic Simone Weil.

Female composers shine in the hands of an Armenian pianist.

The line-up includes Kaija Saariaho's oratorio La Passion de Simone, Schaübuhne's Beware of Pity and a divisive play called Daughter that has had women walking out.

A century ago Finland gained independence after a political struggle fuelled by art and music. Does that lie behind Finland’s musical pre-eminence today?

He realised early that if he wanted his instrument to be taken seriously he had to perform contemporary music.

The new music ensemble’s performance for International Women’s Day launches a year celebrating female composers. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

With works cherry-picked from across Saariaho’s career since 1982, this album shines a spotlight on the beauty and intimacy of her chamber music.

If a three-and-a-half star rating feels miserly for a record that promises much, you should know that the last time I reviewed music by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, I feared for the continued well-being of my computer as I punched my displeasure into my keyboard. Saariaho’s early music – especially gems like Verblendungen and Lichtbogen – were packed with raw-boned harmonic and timbral intrigue; but then, during the 1990s, her music drifts towards generic notions of lyricism and line, leaving those of us who admired the early work to wonder what happened to her incisive, bold spirit. The great British comedian Les Dawson once claimed that “beauty fades, while ugliness endures” and although Saariaho’s music from the 1980s was never exactly ugly – the beauty was elemental, bracing and absolutely revitalising – the ambient, soft-focus leanings of more recent pieces can sit too comfortably inside emotional inverted commas. But then I play this disc and Quatre Instants, her 2002 song cycle for soprano and orchestra, and Terra Memoria, a realisation of her 2007 Second String Quartet for full strings, win me over in a way I wasn’t expecting. The… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already…

Contemporary music’s equivalent of a Heston Blumenthal tasting plate. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in