Kaija Saariaho (1952-Present)

Introduction
Kaija Saariaho is a Finnish composer who was born in Helsinki, Finland in 1952. She is a composer that spearheaded the way for electronic music composition. Most of this composition is from live electronic and playing around with tape. This work with electronics led to a spectral view of harmony where she would examine the spectrum of the sound to create specific harmonic structures. After this time, she turned to composing opera, to which she was very successful; over her career she has been given many awards for her outstanding work as a composer.

Work Analysis
The piece of Saariaho's I chose to look at was from her more electronic music time, "Lichtbogen". This is a piece that has a lot going on, there are many elements of traditional orchestra music, from the violins and woodwind, to the piano. Each of these timbres are being used to create this harmonic structure that is extremely hypnotizing. There are times where the woodwinds and the violins do not even sound like the instrument whatsoever. The interesting harmony that Saariaho uses allows for these traditionally orchestral instruments to have an existence in the electronic music world that is extremely interesting to listen to. This piece does not seem to have a recognizable form, but the repetition of motives, like a trill are constantly used throughout the piece. Utilizing the tops and bottoms of each of these instruments ranges allows the timbre's of said instruments to become so ambiguous, it can often be confusing to understand what instrument is playing what.

Comparisons
I would compare this piece directly to Stockhausen and his specific impact on this sound. This piece creates a soundscape that allows of the listener to think of this music in more that just the aural sense. This influence directly is from the three dimensional soundscape that Stockhausen created utilizing elements like panning, reverb, and timbre. Over time this piece slowly becomes more and more experimental and ambient with it's sound.

Observations
I really enjoyed this piece. The constant development of the sound into something that becomes more and more ambient is very interesting to listen to. I learned not to judge a book by its cover in terms of long pieces like this, when you start off this piece it seem just like a interesting atonal piece, but as the sound develops, you begin to realize that this is more of an electronic music piece than anything.