Seppo Pohjola

String Quartet No. 4

According to Jouni Kaipainen, the fourth string quartet (2006) is one of key works of Seppo Pohjola (b. 1965) and holds a place as a landmark in Finnish quartet literature. Of the composer's five string quartets, it is the longest and has the widest thematic arcs of his quartets. Seppo Pohjola has gone through a variety of styles in his musical career. He began as a strict Modernist, progressed towards Expressionism and took on board Romantic influences before ending up in the early 2000s in (a reformed brand of) Modernism again. Osmo Tapio Räihälä describes the end result thus: 'The 'new' Pohjola often anchors his style in a frenetic pulse through which he builds musical processes. '