Toivo Ilmari Hannikainen (19 October 1892, in

Jyväskylä Jyväskylä () is a city and municipality in Finland in the western part of the Finnish Lakeland. It is located about 150 km north-east from Tampere, the third largest city in Finland; and about 270 km north from Helsinki, the capital of ...

– 25 July 1955, in

Kuhmoinen Kuhmoinen ( sv, Kuhmois) is a municipality of Finland, in Pirkanmaa region, but until 2021, it was part of the Central Finland region. The municipality is home to inhabitants. Neighbour municipalities are Jämsä, Kangasala, Luhanka, Orivesi, ...

) was a

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

composer and virtuoso

pianist A pianist ( , ) is an individual musician who plays the piano. Since most forms of Western music can make use of the piano, pianists have a wide repertoire and a wide variety of styles to choose from, among them traditional classical music, ja ...

. Hannikainen was the son of Pekka Juhani Hannikainen and the brother of Väinö Hannikainen, both of whom were composers and of

Tauno Hannikainen Tauno Heikki Hannikainen (February 26, 1896 – October 12, 1968) was a Finnish cellist and conductor. Born in Jyväskylä, he was the son of the composer Pekka Juhani Hannikainen. The pianist Ilmari Hannikainen and the conductor Väinö Han ...

who was a conductor. After studying at the

University of Helsinki The University of Helsinki ( fi, Helsingin yliopisto, sv, Helsingfors universitet, abbreviated UH) is a public research university located in Helsinki, Finland since 1829, but founded in the city of Turku (in Swedish ''Åbo'') in 1640 as the ...

(1911–14), he became a pupil of Franz Schreker at the Musikakademie in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, and continued his studies with Alexander Siloti in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

(1915–17) and with Alfred Cortot in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

(1919). Returning to Finland, he taught

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...

at the Helsinki Conservatory and later gained a Professorship at the

Sibelius Academy The Sibelius Academy ( fi, Taideyliopiston Sibelius-Akatemia, sv, Sibelius-Akademin vid Konstuniversitetet) is part of the University of the Arts Helsinki and a university-level music school which operates in Helsinki and Kuopio, Finland. It al ...

. Hannikainen steered Finnish classical music from late Romanticism towards

Impressionism Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...

. In addition to his piano miniatures, which best illustrated this development, he composed one

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...

, one piano concerto, one

piano quartet A piano quartet is a chamber music composition for piano and three other instruments, or a musical ensemble comprising such instruments. Those other instruments are usually a string trio consisting of a violin, viola and cello. Piano quartets for ...

, lieder, and

film score A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film. The score comprises a number of orchestral, instrumental, or choral pieces called cues, which are timed to begin and end at specific points during the film in order to e ...

s (notably, '' Sången om den eldröda blomman'', Sweden, 1934). Hannikainen drowned during a sailing trip in

in 1955. Some musical colleagues, like

Aarre Merikanto Aarre Merikanto (29 June 1893 – 28 September 1958) was a Finnish composer. He was born in Helsinki, Grand Duchy of Finland, the son of Elise "Liisa" Häyrynen (1869-1949) and the famous romantic composer, professor Oskar Merikanto (1868-1 ...

, considered his death a suicide. He is buried in the Hietaniemi Cemetery in Helsinki. In the 1970s, the Ilmari Hannikainen Pianokilpailu (Ilmari Hannikainen Piano Competition) was created dedicated to Hannikainen. In 2020, the competition renewed its format style. (Translated: Ilmari Hannikainen Piano music Competition - Kesmes.com)

Notes

References

Biography from Kimmo Korhonen's ''Inventing Finnish Music: Contemporary Composers from Medieval to Modern'', Finnish Music Information Centre (2003)

External links

* *
Songs by Ilmari Hannikainen on The Art Song Project
1892 births 1955 deaths People from Jyväskylä People from Vaasa Province (Grand Duchy of Finland) Finnish male composers Romantic composers 20th-century classical composers Finnish film score composers Male film score composers Finnish classical pianists Deaths by drowning 20th-century classical pianists Burials at Hietaniemi Cemetery Male classical pianists 20th-century male musicians 19th-century male musicians 20th-century Finnish composers {{classical-pianist-stub