Musiikkiteokset

Musiikkiteokset is a Finnish term that translates to "musical works" in English and refers broadly to any composition or piece of music that has been written, produced, or performed. The concept encompasses a wide spectrum of musical forms, including symphonies, sonatas, operas, songs, chamber music, and contemporary compositions written for electronic media. While the term is linguistically specific to Finnish music literature, its usage parallels the English term "musical work" as defined under intellectual property law, wherein a musical work is a composition that includes the score or the musical notation.

In cataloguing practice, musiikkiteokset are typically categorized by genre, period, and the composer's nationality. Classical works may be grouped into baroque, classical, romantic, and modern periods; folk and popular music are identified by style and whether the piece is instrumental or vocal. When a composer creates multiple movements or sections within a single composition, the whole piece is considered one musiikkiteos while the individual movements are referred to as subsections.

A key function of the term in Finnish musicology is to distinguish between performance and arrangement. A musiikkiteos is the original composition, whereas a recording is an interpretation of that composition. This distinction is crucial for rights management and attribution.

Notable Finnish composers who contributed significantly to the corpus of musiikkiteokset include Jean Sibelius, Einojuhani Rautavaara, and Kaija Saariaho, whose works are studied both domestically and internationally. Their compositions illustrate the diversity of Finnish musical expression and its integration into the global classical repertoire.