Sebastian Hilli

“Sebastian Hilli’s Miracle is original and thoroughly honest music for our time

From collapse to euphoria

The most phenomenal achievement, however, was Sebastian Hilli in the commissioned work Miracle (2020), of which the creation coincides with a personal tragedy; the loss of a family member due to covid-19. Hilli, however, is not the one who buries himself into sorrow or unnecessarily wallows in self-pity and after the orchestral collapse, the music gradually works its way up to brighter, even euphoric views leading to the realization that nothing is as it used to be, but that life is still worth living.

Above all, Hilli is not the one who repeats himself unnecessarily, and although the choice of work title can appear as if not directly presumptuous, then at least slightly pretentious, perhaps even a bit kitschy, in the end it is exactly a miracle it’s all about.

The brocade of style influences and allusions, from popular music to avant-garde, Hilli weaves together over the course of twenty minutes is way too abundant and intricately designed to be verbalized in this space and it strikes me that the whole discussion of modernism versus conservatism, difficult and easily accessible, tonal and atonal, in this particular case feels unusually meaningless, blunt in purpose and meaning.

This music does not sound like anything else I have heard before – how often do you have reason to say this about a piece by a 30-year-old composer? – and even if I could possibly think of a Kimmo Hakola or an Anders Hillborg accomplishing something in that direction, the Hillian expression feels completely original, meaningful, fresh and, not least, thoroughly honest. This is the music of our time in all its glory, where everything is allowed for those who are up for the challenge.”
Mats Liljeroos, HBL, May 29 2021

“As good as the music offered throughout the evening was, Sebastian Hilli’s novelty became the main course. He has already proven in the past that he masters the apparatus of a large orchestra and has found his own voice as a fuser of various style influences. This time, his music also took on an even more personal and heart-rending tone, as during Miracle’s composing process, the illness caused by the coronavirus became the fate of his family member.

This background is heard in the music, however Hilli hasn’t written any corona monument whatsoever but rather elevated personal emotions to the universal by shaping the arc of an impressive drama. It begins with a steady rhythmic ticking that describes the passage of time and everyday life. Then comes more and more ominous hunches and fearful stops.

After the disaster, emptiness follows. The low brass sonorities with the trombone glissandos sound the bottomlessness of grief, and the orchestra reflects the echoes of silence. Then, from the state of paralysis, a rhythmic movement begins to rise, as if a stagnant clock came to life. It circulates from one instrument to another and gets increasingly swinging twists until the drive accelerates to truly wild.

The suction is so organic that the listener is caught up in the process of liberation completely. The repeated rewinding of notes is reminiscent of minimalism, and the grandness of the chords and chorales at times brings to mind even Messiaen’s apotheoses of love. Quite some comparisons, but Hilli carries out everything so sincerely and seriously that no quoting even comes to mind.

Lintu and the FRSO expressed the work with passion, and Beethoven’s Second Symphony was played with the wings of optimism risen from the work.”
Harri Kuusisaari, Rondo, May 29 2021