On a late Monday evening in November 1973, a special concert took place in the Teatro Principal in Valencia, Spain. In the opening concert of the autumn season, the Valencia Orchestra (Orquesta de Valencia) featured the premiere of the orchestral work Anerfálicas (1973) by the Finnish-born composer Ann-Elise Hannikainen (1946-2012).1 The premiere was conducted by Hannikainen’s teacher and partner-to-be Ernesto Halffter (1905-1989). This event is particularly significant to the local history of classical music in Valencia since the Valencia Orchestra performed works of only two female composers in the 1970s, namely Ann-Elise Hannikainen who resided in Madrid and Valencia-based Matilde Salvador (1918-2007).2 This is an interesting fact since there were, after all, dozens of female composers in Spain at that time.3 However, it seems that their music did not reach the repertoire of the Spanish orchestras. In the repertoire of the Madrid-based National Orchestra of Spain (Orquesta Nacional de España), for example, Ann-Elise Hannikainen was the only female composer in the 1970s.4

In this article, my aim is to study Ann-Elise Hannikainen’s media image that emerged around the performance of her first orchestral work Anerfálicas in Valencia. I am particularly interested in the complex role that the composer’s gender plays in the critiques and other texts referring to the concert. When I say complex, I refer to the intersectional nature of human life: Ann-Elise Hannikainen’s gender is not present in my research material as an isolated phenomenon, but it is intertwined to themes such as age, physical appearance, social class, family background, education, and nationality. To shed more light on this topic, my article also includes an excursion, where I discuss the media image of the above-mentioned composer Matilde Salvador in the context of the premiere of her opera Vinatea (1974). Salvador serves as an interesting parallel not only because of the previously mentioned performance history but also because Hannikainen’s teacher and future partner Ernesto Halffter had been the mentor of Salvador’s husband, composer Vicente Asencio (1908-1979).

Unlike Salvador,5 Ann-Elise Hannikainen has never been a subject of research of any kind in Spanish musicology, even though it was in Spain that Hannikainen made her career.6 Nor has she been included in the written history of Spanish classical music.7 The Spanish female composers who have gained visibility in research are mostly composers of the early 20^th century or before. These include, for example, María Rodrigo8 and Rosa Garcia Ascot.9 The question of the press’s attitude towards women in music has also been addressed in Spanish musicology, but again the time frame of these studies tends to focus on the early 20^th century.10 The study of the (manly) Spanish critical institution has also focused on this same period.11

This article is a new opening in the sense that it extends the field of research into the recent past of Spanish female actors of classical music. It also indirectly brings to the fore an immigrant composer and her role in the history of Spanish classical music. This article also provides a new perspective on Ernesto Halffter, whose work as a composer has previously been studied mainly in terms of musical analysis or in relation to his teacher Manuel de Falla.12 Above all, I consider this article to be part of the tradition of feminist musicology in the sense that I want to make visible the patriarchal structures embedded in the media image of Ann-Elise Hannikainen and her music.13 I claim that by exposing these structures, feminist musicology can work as a political act toward a cultural change.14 Making Ann-Elise Hannikainen visible as a composer in the Spanish context, where she built her career, is also an act of activism.15

Ann-Elise Hannikainen had moved to Madrid with her parents in June 1972 at the age of 26 after her father Heikki Hannikainen (1905-1989) was appointed as Finland’s ambassador to Spain. Ann-Elise Hannikainen had finished her piano studies in spring at the Sibelius Academy27 in Helsinki and she was looking for a new course to her life since she got ill with rheumatoid arthritis that eventually ended her dream to be a full-time professional pianist. Besides playing the piano, Hannikainen had already taken composition lessons earlier in Peru28 under Rodolfo Holzmann (1910-1992) and in Sibelius Academy under Einar Englund (1916-1999). Thus, while waiting to recover it was natural for her to keep her focus in music through composing.

It seems that the fact that Ernesto Halffter was asked to be Hannikainen’s teacher was quite arbitrary and dependent on Heikki Hannikainen’s networks. Shortly after arriving in Spain, Heikki Hannikainen had met the Turkish Ambassador to Spain, Zeki Kuneralp (1914-1998), who had told him that he knew Ernesto Halffter. Kuneralp had promised to introduce Ann-Elise Hannikainen and her situation to Halffter. 29

There is probably no single reason why the then 67-year-old Ernesto Halffter, who did not really teach composition at all, was willing to teach Hannikainen.30 Halffter clearly recognised Hannikainen’s talent, but one cannot exclude the possibility that he was also attracted to the idea of a young, beautiful female composer. In time, Hannikainen’s parents also became very close to Halffter.31

In any case, Ann-Elise Hannikainen began her private composition studies under Ernesto Halffter in Madrid in September 1972. Hannikainen must have been well motivated and inspired since in April 1973 she already had both a piano concerto and a large-scale orchestral work under preparation. Hannikainen’s pace and efficiency must have been considerable and Halftter’s faith in her gifts strong, as the premiere of this first orchestral work of hers was already planned for the summer. Halffter had negotiated on the subject with the renowned Romanian conductor Sergiu Celibidache (1912-1996), who, according to Halffter, was already looking forward to the work: «He is impatiently waiting for the Variations. I would so much like him to conduct the premiere. He would give you a very careful performance and I’m sure you would have a great triumph!!».32

The score of Hannikainen’s work was scheduled to be sent to Celibidache before June, but the score was probably not completed on time. Instead, the premiere was five months later in Valencia, which had been a meaningful place for Ernesto Halffter since his childhood. Hannikainen was introduced to the readers of Valencian newspapers already in June, when Halffter visited the city with her as a member of the jury of a competition between brass orchestras.33

The composition, which in the correspondence between Hannikainen and Halffter is simply referred to as «Variations»,34 was eventually named Anerfálicas. It is an acronym composed of the names of Ann-Elise Hannikainen (An), Ernesto Halffter (er) and Manuel de Falla (fá).35 However, at the time of the premiere, Hannikainen emphasized that the word was purely a symbolic title that did not carry any specific meaning.36 According to her, its function was simply to distinguish the work from the countless other works composed in variation form in the history of classical music.37 The ending of the name (licas) was a secret between her and Halffter.38

In the musical sense, Anerfálicas can be described as a re-composed version of Hannikainen’s early piano work Tema con XI Variazioni, completed in 1968. The work follows the structure of the original piano composition, and the main theme of both works is the same. However, while the variations in the piano work are quite compact and linear in nature, Hannikainen has expanded almost all the variations in Anerfálicas by developing motifs and giving more time for different timbres. All this and the rich usage of orchestral colors make Anerfálicas its own independent piece of music instead of mere orchestration of the earlier work for solo piano. Indeed, Hannikainen wrote to her father that Anerfálicas «is based = built upon this piano version. This does not mean that it is exactly equal to the orquestra [sic] version —as this later version is greatly amplified and changed for the better».39

Compared to the piano work, what is also new in Anerfálicas is the subheadings of some variations that provide references to the composer’s sources of inspiration. For example, the fifth variation is dedicated to Hannikainen’s poodle called Toy, and the last variation is described as an anthem for the Inca Empire. A special element not present in the original piano work is the tape material used in the fourth variation. The variation is very much like the original one of the piano work, but at the end of the orchestra’s intense tutti section, there is a separate montage of pendulum clocks ticking in different rhythms.40 The history of this tape is unknown and there is no information on how, if at all, Hannikainen participated in the preparation of the tape. However, in her private archive, there is an invitation addressed to young composers to visit the experimental studio of the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE). It is not known whether she participated in the visit, nor did she prepare her tape there, since the invitation is dated in 1970 and Hannikainen started to compose Anerfálicas in 1972 at the initiative of Ernesto Halffter. However, the invitation does prove that Hannikainen was aware, at least on a general level, of the technical and artistic possibilities of music technology of that time. It is also possible that the tape was done as an exercise and later added to the orchestral work.

In terms of musical material, Anerfálicas is faithful to the 12-tone theme of the original piano work as well as to the harmony based on seconds and fourths. Besides the typical wind, brass and string sections, the orchestration includes an extensive percussion section, a piano and two harps, which all affect the distinct sound of the work. Although the orchestration is perhaps its most striking parameter, attention is also drawn to its melodious character, which is one of the key elements in Hannikainen’s later works as well. Hannikainen herself described the work by emphasising its ties to tonality: «In Anerfálicas I follow the great evolution that harmony and instrumentation have undergone, but without losing what I consider the eternal law of music: the tonal principle» [italics by Hannikainen].41 This thought is clearly inherited down to the choice of expression from Ernesto Halffter, who for his part had adopted it from Manuel de Falla.42

Gender and physical description and commentary were part of Ann-Elise Hannikainen’s media image already in the 1960s, when she lived first in Peru and then in Finland.43 Moving to Spain did not diminish this, quite the contrary. As her career as a composer took off, Hannikainen’s gender became even more prominent in the media image. At the same time, the male gaze through which Ann-Elise Hannikainen was presented in the media became more visible. Indeed, what is most eye-catching in my research material is the way not a single male reporter was able to ignore Hannikainen’s gender and looks.44 They were commented on both in Anerfálicas’ concert reviews, which one might have expected to focus on the music itself, and in the interviews, which one might have expected to focus on the interviewee’s thinking. Levante’s journalist Carlos Sentí Esteve was the one who was most fascinated by Hannikainen’s appearance: «We talked to the author, a young woman whose beauty and distinguished appearance are something truly unique. Talent is visible in her eyes and in her words, making her sculptural image even more precious».45

In most cases, Hannikainen’s appearance was referred to only in passing, as if in a sort of casual way, in the same way as her nationality. For example, according to Área’s Iglesias Romero, it was «a nice gesture of this good-looking Finn to premiere her first composition in our country».46 Tico Medina from ¡Hola!, for his part, simply stated that Hannikainen is «very attractive, very Finnish».47 But why should a journalist have had anything to say about Hannikainen’s looks? What value did it provide to the reader, especially since most of the newspaper articles in my material included a photograph of Hannikainen? This brings me to the temporal and cultural distance between myself and the journalists: was it a matter of course for a Spanish male journalist in the early 1970s to comment on the appearance of a young woman? From the point of view of resistant reading one can ask, was it an attempt to reinforce one’s own masculinity by commenting on the appearance of a female interviewee or the subject of a newspaper story? Would it have been rude, or even questioning the journalist’s own (hetero)sexual identity, not to comment on Hannikainen’s physical appearance?

It is certainly clear that masculinity played an important role in Spanish society at the time. Ever since World War I and the Spanish Civil War, the muscular male body was mobilised in Spain, both concretely and symbolically, as part of the military establishment. This model of a strong and virile heterosexual male became the norm of Spanish masculinity. In this norm, the interpretation of Catholic Christianity was seen as justifying male supremacy and female subordination.48 Many texts on Hannikainen indirectly reproduce this very notion of gender roles.

Another element that is evident in my research material is that Ann-Elise Hannikainen is never portrayed independently as the composer of her music, quite the opposite. In the newspaper articles she is always framed by two older men, her father Heikki Hannikainen and her teacher and partner-to-be Ernesto Halffter. The composer’s father is mentioned through the fact that Hannikainen is exclusively attributed as the daughter of the Finnish ambassador. In fact, none of the articles studied leave this matter unmentioned. Despite this patronising attribute, Heikki Hannikainen’s role truly was substantial, as he supported his daughter both financially and with his social networks. He also arranged, at his own expense, the recording of the premiere of Anerfálicas. However, all this concreteness remains obscured in my research material. Heikki Hannikainen’s role is simply to act as a context and status-raiser for Ann-Elise Hannikainen.

Ernesto Halffter, on the contrary, plays a very central and visible role in my material, in most cases even more central than Hannikainen herself. For example, Ricardo Bellveser interviews exclusively Hallfter about Hannikainen’s music even though it is Hannikainen who is brought into the headline.49 Also, seven days after the premiere of Anerfálicas, the newspaper Levante wanted to return to the atmosphere of the concert, however, not by interviewing Hannikainen but Halffter. It was, of course, a natural choice, given that Halffter was a Spanish composer and conductor with whom the Valencian reader was familiar. What is curious, however, is that the interview concerns mainly Hannikainen. For example, Halffter is asked to explain the title of Hannikainen’s work, the meaning of which was not clear to the journalist: «He [Ernesto Halffter] then stated that the original and rare title of the work is a pure whim, a “reverie” without any more precision or reference than the pure creation and symphonic form of a theme and variations».50

In reality, Halffter was most likely aware of the true meaning of the title. It is therefore interesting to consider why he chose to remain silent about it and instead emphasise the symphonic, absolute nature of the work. Did Halffter want to elevate Hannikainen’s status by linking her to the so-called absolute music tradition,51 or did he want to remain silent about his own importance to Hannikainen as a teacher and a man? Halffter was formally married to the Portuguese pianist Alicia Camara Santos until his death, although he lived de facto with Hannikainen since 1974. In public, Halffter always referred to Hannikainen as his disciple, even after they had lived together under the same roof for more than ten years.52 In Spain, Hannikainen respected Halffter’s words, and signed Halffter’s death notice as his disciple, for example.53 This may reflect Hannikainen’s subordinate and non-legitimate status as Halffter’s partner. It was only in the International Who’s Who in Classical Music, published in 2007, that Hannikainen attributed Hallfter as her partner.54 In the Finnish media, however, she had spoken openly about the romantic nature of their relationship ever since 1976.55

The true role of Halffter remained somewhat unclear also in a musical sense, since at least the critics of Jornada and Levante newspapers thought that Anerfálicas was actually Halffter’s own orchestration of Hannikainen’s original piano work.56 Levante’s Enrique Gomá, for example, praised the way Halffter showed in «his» orchestration:

Would the orchestration still have been «masterly in every respect» if Gomá had understood Hannikainen’s role correctly? If Gomá was sincere, it could be considered a remarkable achievement for Hannikainen, who had begun her orchestration studies only a year earlier. Apparently Gomá subsequently became aware of his misunderstanding, because a week later, in an interview with Ernesto Halffter, Gomá highlighted Halffter’s role as the reviewer of the orchestration.58

Ernesto Halffter’s role in the articles is clearly to raise Hannikainen’s status, but also to raise his own status as a discoverer of a talent. According to Halffter

It should come as no surprise then that «Halffter is pleased with the very young composer»60 and that he considered the orchestration he himself had reviewed to be «something of extraordinary value. It is a work that will very soon, once it is published, be in the repertoire of the most important orchestras in the world».61 However, Halffter’s wish did not materialise in the way he envisioned. Anerfálicas was performed in Madrid at the Teatro Real in 1977 and was also recorded by the Spanish National Orchestra for the Radio Nacional España under the direction of Enrique García Asensio. Since then, however, the work has not been performed in Spain or anywhere else, except for a regional performance by the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra in Jyväskylä, Finland, in 2004, on the occasion of the festivities of the Hannikainen Family Association. That performance was conducted by the composer’s second cousin Tuomas Hannikainen.

To shed more light on Ann-Elise Hannikainen’s gendered media image, I will now discuss the media image of the composer Matilde Salvador, mentioned earlier in this paper. Salvador and Hannikainen are interesting to contrast for a number of reasons: although they represent completely different generations,63 they were both composers, pianists and talented visual artists, and both had a composing man at the centre of their lives: for Hannikainen, her teacher and future partner Ernesto Halffter, and for Salvador, her teacher and husband Vicente Asencio.64 The lives of Salvador and Hannikainen are also linked by the fact that Ernesto Halffter was Asencio’s teacher. All four are also bound together by Manuel de Falla. As a former student of Falla, Halffter made a conscious effort to pass on his teacher’s teachings to Hannikainen, while Salvador and Asencio have been otherwise described as following in Falla’s footsteps.65

It is uncertain whether Hannikainen and Salvador were acquainted, but they were most likely at least aware of each other. Ernesto Halffter, for example, referred to Salvador in Ann-Elise Hannikainen’s Finnish interview by saying that she is «among the very few women composers who have written large-scale works».66 I am not aware of any written statements by Salvador about Hannikainen, but Salvador’s sister, the violinist Josefina Salvador (1920-2006), for her part, recalled Hannikainen’s «beauty and musical talent»67 in a letter to Ernesto Halffter as late as 1987. In the same letter she also wrote about the premiere of Anerfálicas by saying «I remember when we all went to listen to it, and how Valencia enjoyed it».

Surprisingly Matilde Salvador was a relevant person in the Spanish media at the very same time as Hannikainen, because only a few months after the premiere of Anerfálicas, Salvador’s second opera, Vinatea, was premiered in Barcelona at the Gran Teatre del Liceu. It was the first time that an opera composed by a woman had been performed on the Liceu stage. Despite this temporal connection between Hannikainen and Salvador, newspaper material of the time quickly reveals many differences between them.68 First, their attitudes towards nationality and local identity are presented in different ways. For Salvador, being a Valencian was essential and many of her works were directly linked to Valencian folklore or to the works of other artists who had influenced the region. According to her, «The basis of my songs is popular, folkloric, I would say: but I build on these essences with my own materials and with my whole soul».69 Xavier Montsalvatge describes her as «Valencian in every sense: by birth, language, culture and heart».70 Ann-Elise Hannikainen, on the other hand, was very much a cosmopolitan, for whom it was natural to draw on elements of different cultures in her music and to also express that publicly for press and concert audiences.

Another difference is that the public attention received by Vinatea does not focus on the physical appearance of Salvador as in the case of Hannikainen. In the material I have studied, the focus is clearly on the music and the creative work. This may be explained by the fact that Matilde Salvador was already a familiar name to readers at the time of Vinatea’s premiere. She was also clearly older than Hannikainen and a Spaniard, which is perhaps why she was not met with the same curiosity as Hannikainen. The only explicit reference to the body and appearance of the then 55-years old composer is in the celebrity news magazine ¡Hola!, where Tico Medina comments that Salvador is «a petite, happy, smiling woman, who loves music and life itself».71 This does not suggest, however, that Salvador’s gender is not a relevant factor in the research material. The Madrid newspaper ABC headlined its news story as follows: «A true musical achievement has taken place at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona: the premiere of the first opera written in Valencian and composed by a woman».72 As the title of this chapter already indicated, Salvador was also asked how it feels to be a woman who sees her own opera performed. In her answer, Salvador equated composing with motherhood: [it is] the same feeling you get when you meet the child you have just given birth to.73 The newspaper Proa also specifically highlighted the gender of the composer: «We could talk about many things, such as the unusual fact that the music —which seems to be magnificent— is the original work of a woman».74

As has been shown earlier in this article, Ernesto Halffter was of great importance at the beginning of Hannikainen’s career —even to the extent that the press seemed to focus on interviewing Halffter even when the subject was Hannikainen. In the case of Salvador, the situation was not so unbalanced, although her husband Vicente Asencio played a very important role in Salvador’s compositional work. The main difference with Halffter and Hannikainen is that Salvador and Asencio were married, so they could be described in the newspaper as «a very nice married couple».75 On the other hand, at times, saying that they were a couple obscures Salvador’s own voice as a composer: «they create and work with extraordinary enthusiasm».76 This kind of collaboration was, I think, very unusual in the history of classical music in the 20^th century. It was also odd that the press was so uninterested in the matter, as if the participation of a spouse in the composition process was perfectly natural. For a long time, however, classical music has cherished the image of a composer who —besides being lonesome— works alone. Perhaps the fact that Salvador composed mainly vocal music, which has historically been considered a genre suitable for women composers, plays a role in her favourable reception. Despite being rare, the fact that Salvador’s own husband orchestrated her works, also fits well with the idea of the historical role of women as the weaker vessel in need of (male) help. In the case of Vinatea, however, this help did not overshadow Salvador’s own compositional contribution, quite the contrary. Augusto Valera writes in El Noticiero Universal that «orchestration of Vicente Asencio is frankly poor».77

Much more than gender and the role of her husband, Matilde Salvador is, however, defined by her Valencian identity. Not a single text fails to mention her regional background, the Valencian libretto of Vinatea, the links between the opera’s story and Valencian history, and the importance of Salvador as part of Valencian musical culture in general. Whereas Hannikainen was seen exclusively in relation to Ernesto Halffter, Salvador’s artistic activity was always framed in the research material by her role in the construction of Valencian culture and identity. This locality was undoubtedly a significant component for Salvador. Nevertheless, one can ask how the press would have treated her if she had been a composer of instrumental music, for example. Was being a Valencian the context given to Salvador in which a woman composer had to remain? During Franco’s dictatorship, the role of women in society was narrow and tied to supporting the home, the family and tradition. Indeed, according to researcher Susan Campos Fonseca, Salvador’s ability to function as a composer was to some extent tied to the fact that her art was so strongly linked to local identity and tradition.78 Matilde Salvador herself, however, would have preferred to emphasise the musical qualities of her work.: «I sincerely believe that the greatest merit of this opera is the music».79

The purpose of this article was to examine what kind of role Ann-Elise Hannikainen’s gender played in the critiques and other texts referring to the premiere of her orchestral work Anerfálicas. The research showed that Hannikainen’s gender defined her publicity in many different ways: both through how she was written about and who was given the right to talk about her music in general. The press wanted to emphasise Hannikainen’s status as a daughter of an ambassador and as a student of Ernesto Halffter. That is partly understandable, since 26-year-old Hannikainen was only at the beginning of her composing career. At the same time, however, one might wonder whether a male composer of the same age would have been left in the shadow of his teacher with the same intensity and attributed primarily as someone’s son instead of being a grown-up artist. After all, Ann-Elise Hannikainen was at that time already a professional musician who had a degree from the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland.

In the research material, Ann-Elise Hannikainen’s persona and work as a composer were mostly obscured by the astonishment of her gender and the description of her body and external appearance. However, the male gaze of the journalists did not just remain on the surface of the skin, but also extended deep into the core of authorship and the conceptions of what artistic work fundamentally is. This is reflected in the way Ernesto Halffter spoke in interviews on Hannikainen’s behalf. Many of the word choices and perspectives in my research material clearly represent the male gaze which might have been normal in the era and in the Spanish context. However, this does not mean that they were acceptable or ethically sustainable even in their own time. This article also demonstrates how the male gaze is not necessarily dependent on the gender of a particular journalist at all. A good example of this is an extensive interview in the newspaper ABC, in which the journalist María Mérida brings the male gaze into Matilde Salvador’s interview by asking Vicente Asencio to tell the reader what he thinks is most significant about Salvador as a woman. These sorts of things become particularly noticeable, as Fetterley suggests, when they are viewed entirely from the outside, in this case from a temporal and cultural distance.

Overall, my article shows the inability and unwillingness of the press to see women composers as composers as such. It seems that Ann-Elise Hannikainen and Matilde Salvador both benefited significantly from, if not depended on, being clearly labelled as composers. In Salvador’s case, the composer herself had certainly already internalised and embraced Valencianism as a key attribute. In Hannikainen’s case, however, gender was not yet at this stage her own choice as a defining factor in her identity as a composer. It was only some years later, after the Anerfálicas was composed, that Hannikainen adopted her gender as a central component in defining her own musical identity. This can be seen in the way Hannikainen justified her later music’s ties to tonality and melodic expression precisely on the basis of her gender and the cultural space it provided.