Cantus arcticus, Op. 61
Einojuhani Rautavaara
b. Helsinki, Finland / October 9, 1928
First performance by the RPO.
“If an artist is not a modernist when he is young, he has no heart. And if he is a modernist when he is old, he has no brain.” – Rautavaara
Rautavaara possesses one of today’s most appealing voices. His recent music in particular – luminous, beautiful, emotionally satisfying – has made him Finland’s most widely heard and praised composer since Jean Sibelius.
He came to music slowly and indirectly. “When I was a small boy,” he has written, “with no personal contact with music as yet, I painted ‘music’ on paper with watercolors and put these paintings on display as ‘compositions.’” He began piano lessons at the late age of 17, then studied musicology at the University of Helsinki, and composition at the Sibelius Academy with the distinguished teacher, Aarre Merikanto.
In 1955, to honor Sibelius’s ninetieth birthday, the Koussevitzky Foundation of Boston offered a scholarship that would enable a young Finnish composer to study in the United States for two years. Sibelius himself chose Rautavaara. The young Finn consequently received instruction from Vincent Persichetti at The Juilliard School, and from Aaron Copland and Roger Sessions at Tanglewood. Further studies followed in Ascona with Wladimir Vogel and in Cologne with Rudolf Petzold. Returning to Finland, Rautavaara held a succession of faculty positions at the Sibelius Academy between 1966 and 1991. Since 1988 he has made his living as a composer in Helsinki, receiving numerous prizes and awards for his music.
He has passed through a variety of musical styles. He began with the neo-classical mode of Hindemith and Stravinsky, before turning first to the 12-tone serialism of Schoenberg, then a romantic approach rooted in the folk-flavored Russian school of Mussorgsky and Borodin.
Recent compositions display a haunting brand of post-romantic mysticism characterized by stillness and meditative beauty. Several bear titles which include the word “angel”: Angels and Visitations, orchestra, 1978; Double Bass Concerto, “Angel of Dusk,” 1980; Playgrounds for Angels, brass ensemble, 1981; Symphony No. 7, “Angel of Light,” 1994. “These angels did not stem from fairy tales or religious kitsch,” the composer writes, “but from the conviction that other realities exist beyond those we are normally aware of, entirely different forms of consciousness. They may bear some resemblance to the visions of William Blake, and are certainly related to Rainer Maria Rilke’s awe-inspiring figures of holy dread.”
Cantus arcticus (subtitled Concerto for Birds and Orchestra) is one of Rautavaara’s most widely performed creations. He composed it in 1972 for the academic degree ceremony at the University of Oulu, the most northerly college in Finland. Wishing to break with the long-standing tradition of writing stately, formal music for such occasions, he took the university’s location, with which he had been familiar since childhood, as his inspiration. Tape recorder in hand, he wandered through the lonely forests and marshlands, recording the songs of the birds and choosing from among them the “soloists” for his “concerto.” Combining these recorded natural sounds with washes of impressionistic orchestral color – at times he instructs the players to make bird-like sounds with their instruments, as well – makes for a timeless, dream-like experience, a haunting communion between man and nature. “Think of autumn and Tchaikovsky,” Rautavaara wrote in the score.
Symphony No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 10
Dmitri Shostakovich
b. St. Petersburg, Russia / September 25, 1906
d. Moscow, Russia / August 9, 1975
First performed by the RPO on November 13, 1931; Henry Hadley, conductor. Last performed on January 15, 1994; Mark Elder, conductor.
Early in Shostakovich’s career, he truly seemed the brightest musical beacon of the time and place. When he completed Symphony No. 1 in 1925, at age 19, the conflicts between him and the repressive Soviet cultural bureaucracy that would regularly bedevil him lay years ahead of him. The following year, this remarkably assured work served as his graduation exercise from the Leningrad Conservatory. It rapidly and triumphantly made its way around the world, entering the repertoires of the eminent conductors Arturo Toscanini and Bruno Walter, maestros who didn’t conduct a great deal of contemporary music.
Even in so early a work lay the seeds of much that would follow. Throughout it runs, for example, a deep if not yet fully mined vein of melancholy and questioning. This reflects not only his own, introspective personality but also his love of similarly minded composers such as Mahler, Mussorgsky, and Tchaikovsky.
The four movements divide into two pairs. The dominant quality in the first half is a brittle sense of humor, something which had no doubt been nurtured by Shostakovich’s recent activities as a piano accompanist to silent film comedies. The impudence that is the primary element of the first movement increases sharply in the second. Forecasting more serious moods to come, Shostakovich provides a counterweight through a mysterious, chant-like second theme.
The second half opens with a funeral march. The darkest edges of its overall sobriety, however, are regularly cushioned by what would become another Shostakovich trademark: prominent, highly expressive passages for solo instruments. The finale, which follows on without a break, is marked by sharp contrasts. Outbursts of feverish activity alternate with passages of deep meditation, wrapped up by an assertive conclusion.
Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35
Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
b. Kamsko-Votkinsk, Russia / May 7, 1840
d. St. Petersburg, Russia / November 6, 1893
First performed by the RPO on November 17, 1932; Guy Fraser Harrison, conductor; Alexander Leventon, violin. Last performed on July 29, 2006; Michael Butterman, conductor; Juliana Athayde, violin.
Tchaikovsky composed the concerto in 1878, while visiting Clarens, Switzerland. Dissatisfied with the original slow movement, he replaced it with the one known today. He sent the concerto to Leopold Auer, the distinguished Hungarian soloist. To his horror, Auer declined to perform it, citing technical and artistic shortcomings. Crushed, Tchaikovsky shelved it.
Some time later, German soloist Adolf Brodsky expressed an interest, then spent the better part of two years preparing to give the premiere. That took place at a concert by the Vienna Philharmonic, Hans Richter conducting, on December 4, 1881. The audience loved Brodsky’s playing, but they hissed the piece. The press, led by the arch conservative critic Eduard Hanslick, heaped abuse upon it, too.
Despite this initial hostility, the concerto lost little time in establishing itself as a concert favorite. Brodsky’s continuing advocacy had much to do with this. In gratitude, Tchaikovsky changed his original dedication plan, switching it from Auer to Brodsky. Auer later changed his view. He became one of its most persuasive champions and made sure that his many pupils, including Jascha Heifetz, performed it as well.
It is considerably less dramatic and more lightly scored than Tchaikovsky’s only previous concerto, the First for piano (1875). In breadth of conception and richness of contents, the opening movement is virtually a complete concerto in itself. Since both principal themes are lyrical, Tchaikovsky achieves the necessary contrast by alternating lightly scored passages for violin and orchestra, with more forceful sections scored for orchestra alone.
Woodwinds introduce the wistful, elegant second movement. The soloist uses a mute, giving the instrument a veiled, restrained sound most appropriate to the music. The vivacious, folk-flavored dance rhythms of the finale burst in abruptly. Two warm contrasting ideas are subjected to elaborate presentation. The solo violin then leads off an exhilarating chase which brings the concerto to a dashing close.
© 2009 Don Anderson. All rights reserved.
