Yrjö Kilpinen

Who was Yrjö Kilpinen?

Yrjö Henrik Kilpinen was a Finnish composer. He was born in Helsinki, and in 1907 he started his studies in the Helsingin Musiikkiopisto. In 1910 Kilpinen moved to Vienna to continue his studies and from 1913 to 1914 he studied in Berlin. He travelled extensively in Scandinavia and central Europe, especially Germany. He became an honorary professor in 1942 and was elected to the Finnish Academy in 1948.

Kilpinen is most famous for composing 790 works in the Lieder style. Among his other works were six piano sonatas, a violin sonata and a cello sonata.

As a lied composer he should be considered as one of the most remarkable names of the 20th century. It is no wonder, then, that during the 1930s and 40s he was internationally the most well-known Finnish composer after Jean Sibelius.

Kilpinen's friendship with the German national-socialistic leaders brought him a bad name after the war, after which he was more or less a "persona non grata".

In April 1999, the North American Yrjö Kilpinen Society came into existence. The Sousa Archives and Center for American Music at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign holds the Jeffrey Sandborg Collection of Yrjo Kilpinen Music, 1920–1940, which consists of published scores, manuscripts, newspaper and journal articles, concert programs, photographs, phonograph and reel-to-reel recordings.