musicians-from-finland

"Lapset: The children are dexterous, true, but being unable to do calculations, they need help with matters relating to wages."

"Mersu-humppa: The losers shut up seeing me park my Mercedes in front of the bar."

"Pari pitsaa: A man comes home with some frozen pizzas, but the promise of an amorous moment vanishes when the Formula 1 Race starts on TV."

"Siipeen jos sain: The one ill-used by the world knows that his disgrace will pass in the end."

"Suvisivakointia: Nordic walk takes quite a bit of spunk."

"Äärelä (Minne muistot matkaa): I wish that in my mind I'll always be able to find my way back to these special moments of ours. A wedding waltz."

"Ikävä: If I'm off to see you with a bottle of red wine, shall I find some blue cheese at the petrol station, I wonder."

"Hurja poika: The grave of the wild one is deep and black. You get chilly waiting for the resurrection."

"Suolammen vettä (Swamp pond's water): Child, if it's of any consolation, my shoes, too, have in their time become wet and my socks received a strange colour."

"When I was four years old I said I will be a musician and that was pretty much it."

"I am not sure if I have heard a description of my music that would have been 100% accurate. I just make the kind of music I like myself, it is up to other people to find words that describe it."

"Homosexual music for catholic girls."

"… others have called it as darkpop or something similar, and I can live with that."

""Nude" is about an relationship I was in during that period and there is a joyful beginning and creepy end … yeah life can be cruel, but god dammit how I love to write when my life is miserable."

"Although it must be said it would be really nice if people listened to us because they like our music and not because we come from Finland."

"Today we play guitar. We shall not speak or write. We just play and maybe drink some blood of virgins."

"Whereas most other modern composers are engaged in manufacturing cocktails of every hue and description, I offer the public cold spring water."

"If I could express the same thing with words as with music, I would, of course, use a verbal expression. Music is something autonomous and much richer. Music begins where the possibilities of language end. That is why I write music."

"Music is for me like a beautiful mosaic which God has put together. He takes all the pieces in his hand, throws them into the world, and we have to recreate the picture from the pieces."

"In his work a means of escape has been found from outmoded romanticism on the one hand and from a barren objectivity on the other."

"Art is the signature of civilizations."

"I often conduct an orchestra in my sleep; my orchestras are so huge that the back desks of the violas vanish into the horizon. And everything is so wonderful."

"Sibelius is unquestionably a leader in the front rank of symphonic composers. He has got out of the ruts worn by his predecessors far more completely than Brahms got away from Beethoven, or even Richard Strauss from Wagner. If someone would only burn Finlandia he would come to our young people as an entirely original inventor of a new art form and a new harmony technique."

"Sibelius has an acutely developed sense of identification with nature and a preoccupation with myth that at one and the same time define his unique strength and his basic limitation. These preoccupations override his involvement in the human predicament, except in so far as it affects man’s relationship with nature."

"The framework of a symphony must be so strong that it forces you to follow it, regardless of the environment and circumstances."

"It is so difficult to mix with artists! You must choose business men to talk to, because artists only talk of money."

"If we understood the world, we would realize that there is a logic of harmony underlying its manifold apparent dissonances."

"Never pay any attention to what critics say…Remember, a statue has never been set up in honour of a critic!"