Tauno Pylkkänen

Tauno Kullervo Pylkkänen (March 22, 1918 – March 13, 1980) was a Finnish composer. He was a popular opera composer and was nicknamed during his lifetime as Northern Puccini.Pylkkänen was an orphan born in Helsinki during the Finnish Civil War whom actor Hilma Rantanen and office manager Väinö Veikko Pylkkänen adopted as their foster son from a newspaper advertisement. His real father, Heikki Pakarinen, who had fallen into the Red Guard against his will, died in the Hämeenlinna prison camp in August 1918.

Pylkkänen was a student of Leevi Madetoja and Selim Palmgren, and studied at the Helsinki Conservatory, then in Paris, Rome, and Vienna. He made his breakthrough as a composer with the opera Mare ja hänen poikansa (1943) after Aino Kallas, which was premiered in the Finnish Opera in 1945. It was followed by ten more operas, including the internationally successful Sudenmorsian (1950). From 1960 to 1967 he was artistic director of the Finnish Opera.

In addition to the operas he composed a symphony, a symphonic fantasy, six symphonic poems, a cello concerto, chamber music works, a cantata, film music, a choir cycle for women's voices, songs and two song cycles.