Sistema

When I for the first time read Jessikka Aro’s book “Putin’s trolls”, I was completely blown away. It was the first book I had read about how actively and aggressively Putin is committing information war on the west. Since then I have read about 25 books about information war and Russian politics and have come to this conclusion: I think we in the west are still far too uninformed and naive about to which extent our neighbouring country is willing to go to destroy other countries democracies and unity. In Aro’s newest book “Putin’s USA”, she points out how it is both very probable and partially proven, that Russia has influenced the result of the latest elections in the United States.

Anna-Lena Laurén has written in her book “Sammets diktaturen” (“The Velvet dictatorship”) how Russia can be described a few their own words: “sistema”, which implies the system of strict rules, where one has to know which ones can be broken and when and which can’t be, “krysha” which means roof but implies protection from friends and contacts, and “control” which is the key element of Putin’s power. Another word “nashomu”, which can be translated to “our way” is used to describe the Russian imperialist way of thinking, how things should be done their way.

In 2024 I composed a piece “Information” (Op.90) for Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra inspired by the topic of the information war, and it consisted of words in morse code that were performed by the orchestra. I used both the morse code as rhythm as well as the names of the notes (first the scale a-h and then continuing chromatically with i=c, j=c# etc) to spell out the words. “Sistema” is a sister piece to “Information”, however with a new twist: the string quartet is the rigid system (“sistema”) and the recorder is the “oligarc” who partially operates within the system and partially operates in the loopholes of the system and partially operates on completely own rules.

I chose to compose a music about such a dire topic because I believe that knowledge and the spreading of knowledge is the key to building resistance, and hence even the key to survival against an imperialistic neighbour.

The words that I have chosen the quartet to play are:

SISTEMA (26x)

MONEY (3X)
LAUNDERING
MONEY LAUNDERING (3X)

TAX EVASION (2X)
EVASION (4X)

SHELL COMPANY
SHELL COMPANIES
MONEY LAUNDERING MONEY
SHELL MONEY COMPANY MONEY

CORRUPTION MONEY (2X)
KLEPTOCRACY MONEY (2X)
KLEPTOCRACY

SWISS BANKS MONEY
SWISS BANKS
MONEY (12X + 4X)

KRYSHA (10X)
MONEY KRYSHA (2X)

CONTROL (7X)
MONEY CONTROL (2X)

TAX EVASION (2X)
EVASION (4X)

SHELL SHELL COMPANY
SHELL SHELL COMPANIES

MONEY LAUNDERING
MONEY CORRUPTION
MONEY LAUNDERING
MONEY CORRUPTION

KLEPTOCRACY
CENSORSHIP PROPAGANDA (3X)
PROPAGANDA (5X)

TOTALITARIANISM NASHOMU (2X)
TOTALITARIANISM
IMPERIALISM (7X)

The piece was commissioned by recorder player Eero Saunamäki and will be premiered by him together with the Kamus Quartet at Our Festival (Meidän festivaali) in Järvenpää in July 2026. The commission has been funded by Konstsamfundet, Niilo Helanderin säätiö and the Teosto’s Commission Grant Committee.