While composing, I pondered about the happiness industry and the way it affects and has affected my own being. Its undeniable achievement is the mystification of the feeling of happiness into unattainable proportions: happiness is never in the present but something to be pursued through continuous effort and success with ever increasing goals. A fulfilled dream is always just a step towards even bigger dreams, and happiness remains unattainable. The double meaning of the word ”onni” in Finnish language, referring to both ”good fortune” and ”happiness”, is fascinating and creates a connection between happiness and luck: in the pursuit of happiness, pure chance is always involved. It was this contingency of possibilities that formed the core for the work, the meeting point for the two original ideas.

The form of the piece is constructed of successive “spins” and the musical situations in between. The music is dominated by furious and restless hurling from one dream, attempt, and mistake to another – from one musical situation and material to another, to the extremes of register, dynamics, and rhythm. Each new “spin” is provoked by dissatisfaction and boredom when the achieved result was not as expected. This neverending hunt for happiness that inspired the work is like a game of gambling, in which a solution to dissatisfaction is sought by spinning the wheel of fortune once more. Constant promises of even greater things fuel the feeling of unease. When composing, I imagined music that is hyper-energetic, restless, and exuberant in nature, festive and powerful, even pompous. The music acts as a carnivalesque frame for the unattainability of happiness and the vastness of wonderful opportunities.

Happiness looming on the fleeing horizon and the impossibility to reach it in the present moment keeps us moving, makes us work. But who defines the recipe for happiness, the life that should make you happy? Can I even recognize happiness? Do they want me to be happy? Or is it all down to pure chance, good fortune?