Finnish modernist composer Bergman dies at 94

0 Comments | AFP, April, 2006

HELSINKI (AFP) — The Finnish composer Erik Valdemar Bergman, famous for his 12-tone (dodecaphonic) works and compositions for choirs, has died in Helsinki aged 94, the STT news agency reported Monday.

Bergman, who died during the night of Sunday, was a leading figure in Finnish modernism and began in 1950 his studies of dodecaphonic music, the father of which was Arnold Schoenberg.

A Swedish-speaker, he was born on November 24, 1911 in Nykarleby in the west of Finland and studied at Helsinki University and then the Sibelius Academy, from which he graduated in 1938.

He studied in Berlin, Vienna and Switzerland where he was a pupil of Vladimir Vogel. In 1957 he produced his first overtly dodecaphonic work, "Tre aspetti d'una serie dodecafonica".

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