RALLY DRIVING AND VILLA-LOBOS

Timo Korhonen talks to Colin Cooper

The young man who originally wanted to be a rally driver (until he heard Villa-Lobos) was born on 6 November 1964 in Rautalampi, Finland. In 1982, at the age of only 17 he won the Munich Competition. In the Havana Competition few years later he became the first European to win the prize for the best interpretation ofa Latin-American composition and this in the teeth of some formidable and idiomatic competition from the assorted Cubans, Mexicans and Brazilians who were present. The music producers of Finnish Broadcasting Corporation, YLE, chose Timo Korhonen's first CD as the Record of the Year in 1989. He has made seven CDs altogether, and his plans include a recording of Brouwer's Concerto of Helsinki his 5th concerto), other concertos and CDs of collected works by Brouwer.
He is also a member of the ensemble Toimii, an enterprising group comprising cello, guitar; clarinet, keyboard, percussion, voice and the conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen. Peripheral activities and duties include 'research, communications, compositions, toys, practical matters, sound design, archives, arrangements.' Toimii is a laboratory, says the publicity, experimenting with musical ideas that are new, building programmes that mix styles, moods and media. No one is confined to his usual instrument. 'The ensemble serves as an instrument to take their feet firmly off the ground once in a while', we are told; and we can only applaud. The ensemble may vary a little from concert to concert, but the line is clear: 'either you are a member of Toimii, or you aren't'. Toimii is a mood, one gathers: 'It is better not to analyse Toimii too much, as the next time it might have already moved on to a totally different path'. Among the many countries and the many venues where Toimii has performed are the Royal Festival Hall in London, and the locomotive depot in Uusikaupunki, Finland. What can one say after that?
It was, however, as a solo guitarist that Timo Korhonen spoke to CG, and this is what he told us.

My parents used to sing a church choir, but the important thing was, they were, and still are, very keen amateur actors. I saw them acting and they took me to see professional theatre. That's how I got into the arts.
My first memory of music is the D-minor Toccata and Fugue for organ by J S Bach: it exposed my imagination. I saw beautiful colours, felt some fast movements - running in the forest. I was eight years of age.
I became a guitarist because I wanted to learn to play the first Prelude of Villa-Lobos. In 1974, Finnish TV showed the Granada TV production, Masters of the Guitar, with John Williams. In one of the programmes I heard him play that work. Before hearing the Villa-Lobos, I wanted to become a rally driver.

Where did you study? Who were your teachers?

In the mid-70s, the guitar was a popular instrument in Finland. A lot of people played it, so many that it was possible to get lessons in my really small home village (about 4,800 inhabitants). My first teacher was Esko Hartikainen, a jazz guitarist.
The first lessons were group lessons. Mr Hartikainen taught me that playing is about joy and enjoyment. In 1979 I started to study with Pekka Vesanen in Helsinki. From 1980, when I was 15, I moved to Helsinki to study at the Sibelius Academy with Pekka Vesanen. Later I also studied with Seppo Siirala, with whom I did my diploma. I was having a difficult time in my playing, after an absolutely unexpected success in the Munich contest in 1982. In 1985 I met for the first time Oscar Ghiglia, who is the most important person in my development as a musician and artist. I went to Basle to study with him. In many ways he is an admirable teacher. He never told you how to play, but asked questions, made metaphors to explain music. He really helped with the music - no tricks! He helped me to find my own personal path in music.

Apart from Oscar Ghiglia and Villa-Lobos, what other musical influences were there?

When I was young I idolised Bream and Williams. I wanted to learn to play like them. Later, as a professional guitarist, I saw Bream especially, but both are, of course, charismatic personalities beyond borders, and they have made dozens of commissions of new compositions for the guitar. That is really work for the future! They never make cheap tricks, but follow their serious musical taste.
I love piano music. From great pianists, I've learned a lot, and got some important ideas of playing polyphonic textures on the guitar. I could mention Horowitz, Arrau and Richter as artists I admire. In Finland we have an outstanding pianist, Olli Mustonen, who incidentally is my favourite.
A very important memory from the early 70s is Leo Brouwer's La Espiral Eterna, which I heard on the radio in his own performance. I didn't know the guitar could sound so exciting and imaginative - the title as well. Later, when I studied the guitar, I ran into that piece; it was the first composition in modern style I studied, and it opened a whole new world for me. I am really glad I could meet and get to know Brouwer personally, and I must say that his compositions are having an important role in my repertoire.

How do you see contemporary guitar music in general?

In the guitar repertoire, contemporary music has a very important role. Most of our repertoire comes from this century. The variety of styles is tremendous. I am not evaluating the styles, but there are good and bad works. Brouwer, Henze, Donatoni, Britten, Carter and Ginastera, to mention only a few, have composed masterpieces for the guitar. These composers have created their own language in order to write for the guitar; their works sound!
Often the guitar causes difficulties for composers, because it is something in between a melody and a harmony instrument. That is why composers always should understand it is necessary to have a certain idiomatic approach. For me, contemporary music is a natural part of my musicianship. It is music of our time.

You have recently recorded the entire Villa-Lobos guitar works. What was your approach to this composer? And can you tell us something about the world premiere on this CD?

My approach to Villa-Lobos is purely fateful. Villa-Lobos is my destiny. His technical innovations - use of overtones, dynamic and emotional climaxes - remain unsurpassed. This is why Villa-Lobos's guitar music is at once the daily bread, the Crown Jewel and the Mount Everest of guitarists.
The Villa-Lobos world premiere recording in my collection is Introduction aux Choros, for orchestra and guitar, dating from 1929. After completing the Choros cycle, Villa-Lobos went on to compose an introduction to it along the lines of a traditional symphonic overture. This Introduction aux Choros is a kind of potpourri in which he draws on themes of previous choros compositions. The work generates a special tension by pitting the lyrical guitar against a large orchestra. The guitar is given several short solos sandwiched between longer orchestral passages. In the manuscript in 1929 the composer specified 'chitarra con microphone' It is difficult to understand why it has been performed so few times until today. The overture ends with the rising motive of the opening bar of Choros No. 1.

Villa-Lobos's instructions for a microphone are very interesting. Do you have any strong views about amplification?

It is better to hear the soloist! I always use amplification with an orchestra. As far as I know, the only concertos with natural balance are Brouwer's No. 1 and Poul Ruder's Psalmodies. When I perform with the ensemble Toimii, it is always amplified. With modern amplification systems one can certainly get good natural sound.
The difficulty in amplifying the classical guitar seems to be how to get the sonority amplified and not the noises of nails etc. This is why I think the traditional acoustic microphones give the best result. The distance between guitar and microphone is essential.

In your list of recordings, there is a remarkable absence of transcriptions. What do you think about transcriptions?

Good transcriptions can sometimes express the musical insight even better than the original. I would like to mention Llobet's transcriptions of Catalan folksongs, the Reverie of Albeniz, Barrueco's Albeniz transcriptions and Pujol's transcription of Falla's Danza Espanola No. 1 from La Vida Breve as examples of my 'ideals'. I am very much against aesthetically uncritical, spectacular transcriptions where the interest seems to be the idea of showing the sensational performer and performance instead of music. Those ideas will not last decades.

What do you think the guitar needs to improve its position in the world of music?

Oscar Ghiglia once asked me: 'Where did the Segovia audience go?' The question itself explains something. The time is different; the 'zeitgeist' is looking for more spectacular things, although those Three Tenor 'games' might give us some signal of the collapse of the ideology of spectacle, What more can there be, Four Tenors? When Segovia started his career, there were few recordings, no Concorde, no Internet, So, he could start from 'tabula rasa', achieving his position and acquiring his audience over the years. The public went to listen to Segovia and the guitar, not so much to the music. I think these are the two essential things. As we don't have 32 Sonatas by Beethoven, and as the world is looking for a spectacular and an entertaining circus, we should get compositions from the Beethovens of our time!
The guitar must be played well,' as the Greek philosopher Aristotle said, and it is still true. For me, it means the guitarist must know and believe in and understand the repertoire. I always get mad when somebody explains that Villa-Lobos or Brouwer are related too closely to western pop music. What a ridiculous idea! European pop music got ideas from the Latinos, not the other way around.
Those two composers are often misunderstand. Their music feels well in the hands, and so some works are performed too fast, like Villa-Lobos's Etude No. 1 (allegro non troppo) or Leo Brouwer's Arpa del guerrero, from The Black Decameron. The careful notation of voices, articulation, colour, tempo marking and dynamics is not considered proper. 'The style comes from the music,' Ghiglia said; simply, that is true.
The close relation to pop music can be seen to be an advantage also, Big publicity is present, media and public. The guitar should be seen more in the media. Segovia understood it, as Williams and Bream have. Competitions can raise the profile; and here comes my most important future project in Tampere, Finland; we want to start a new international competition for guitarists and guitar compositions, There should be, during the competition, kalenteri of the highest level. Now, in December 95, we are negotiating for money, and I hope this event will happen for the first time in June 1988 - with heavy publicity! In Finland the guitar is doing well; there is a public, and large numbers of amateur players listening to the kalenteri, which aren't so many.

I perform in Finland about ten to 15 times a year, including, usually, five to eight times with orchestra, Then recitals and chamber music, Abroad, I normally give 20 to 30 recitals or chamber music kalenteri, very seldom with orchestra. In 1995 I performed in Lithuania, Estonia, Madrid, Stockholm, Venice, Germany (six kalenteri with three different programmes) and the festival in Iceland, as well as the kalenteri in Finland.

Will you say something about your teaching? Where do you teach? And do you enjoy it?

I teach at the Sibelius Academy, Helsinki, and at the Conservatory of Turku. I give masterclasses occasionally. I do enjoy teaching; I have a good and inspirational class and I have to confess - it sounds like a cliché - that I learn a lot from them. It is like gardening; you have to understand the mechanisms of music before you are able to explain it so clearly that music starts blossoming in the student.