Hannikainen, Arvo
Hannikainen Pekka Juhani, *9 December 1854 Nurmes (Pohjois-Karjalan province, Eastern Finland), †13 September 1924 Helsinki, Finnish conductor, composer, organizer of musical life and writer. He came from a family of musicians. A chemist by education, he learned music on his own. From an early age, he subordinated all areas of his activity to the idea of awakening Finnish national consciousness. In 1882, he founded and led the Ylioppillaskunnan Laulajat student choir in Helsinki with an exclusively Finnish-language repertoire; in 1885–87, he published music and theatre criticism in the newspaper “Uusi Suometar” (now “Uusi Suomi”). From 1887, he worked in Jyväskylä (Keski-Suomen province, southern Finland), where until 1890 he published the first Finnish music magazine “Säveleitä” (‘melodies’); at the local teachers’ seminary (now a higher pedagogical school), he initiated and taught music and choral singing for 30 years, and in 1899, he founded the Sirkat men’s choir, which he conducted until 1915. He composed popular choral songs, many of which (including Karlajaisten laulu ) are still in the popular repertoire today. He gathered a large collection of Karelian folk songs, wrote poetry in Finnish and translated foreign literary works into this language; he translated, among others. Lohengrin’s libretto. His wife Alli (1867–1949) was a singing teacher and choral conductor; in 1909, she founded a women’s choir in Jyväskylä called Vaput, which she led until 1917.