Morning Music with Julie: Rautavaara, Angels and Visitations

Osda sunalei, sidanelvhi.  It's 10:20 am and this is Morning Music with Julie.

Einojuhani Rautavaara; born 9 October 1928) is a Finnish composer of contemporary classical music, and is one of the most notable Finnish composers after Jean Sibelius.

Rautavaara was born in Helsinki in 1928 and studied at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki under Aarre Merikanto from 1948 to 1952 before he was recommended for a scholarship to study at the Juilliard School in New York City. There he was taught by Vincent Persichetti, and he also took lessons from Roger Sessions and Aaron Copland at Tanglewood. He first came to international attention when he won the Thor Johnson Contest for his composition A Requiem in Our Time in 1954.

Rautavaara served as a non-tenured teacher at the Sibelius Academy from 1957 to 1959, music archivist of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra from 1959 to 1961, rector of the Käpylä Music Institute in Helsinki from 1965 to 1966, tenured teacher at the Sibelius Academy from 1966 to 1976, artist professor (appointed by the Arts Council of Finland) from 1971 to 1976, and professor of composition at the Sibelius Academy from 1976 to 1990.

Rautavaara suffered an aortic dissection in January 2004. He had to spend almost half a year in intensive care but has since recovered and managed to continue his work.

Angels and Visitations (1978) was the first in Rautavaara’s Angel Series (the latest being the Angel of Light, or Seventh Symphony, that I reviewed last June). Rilke was a prime mover this time, though the composer’s childhood vision of a “mighty presence” is equally significant. Musically, the work enters on cymbal sea-spray backed by quietly curling string figurations. Contrasts abound, from the cold purity of the string writing (8'00'', or thereabouts – echoes of Sibelius’s Sixth), to disruptive interjections (roughly 40 seconds on) and rhythmic computations reminiscent of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring (11'27''). One can easily imagine Angels and Visitations as the soundtrack to a troubled dream sequence and the performance is – like its disc companions – wholly convincing.

Einojuhani Rautavaara's masterpiece, Angels & Visitations, performed by Leif Segerstam and the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra