Rautavaara: Einojuhani Rautavaara

Einojuhani Rautavaara may well be the most popular symphonist alive today. On the occasion of his 80th anniversary, Ondine pays homage to its longtime house composer by releasing the first-ever edition of the complete eight symphonies, in a special box set. Rautavaara is recognized as the greatest Finnish composer after Jean Sibelius. He has often described symphonic music as a journey through human life.

This four-disc Ondine set collects the complete concertos of Einojuhani Rautavaara. While these 12 works may not make the best argument for the Finnish post-modernist's status as a great composer – his eight symphonies surely make good that claim – they certainly make the best argument for his status as an amazingly effective, astoundingly diverse, and wonderfully individualistic composer. The works themselves are all from Rautavaara's wide-ranging maturity.

Einojuhani Rautavaara and Kalevi Aho, teacher and pupil, are both key figures in the Finnish music of their respective generations. Rautavaara's musical language evolved from neoclassicism through dodecaphony and the stylistic freedom of the 1960s before he eventually allowed himself to choose his expressive idiom according to the individual requirements of his works. Towards the end of his career, his works took on a very consistent, soft-toned character. For his part, Aho also began his career using a freely applied neoclassical style before gradually progressing to a more varied, at times modernist expressive and incisive approach. The works featured on this disc offer a glimpse into the choral output of these two composers who, in addition to demonstrating their stylistic versatility, also reveal their literary curiosity.

This four-disc Ondine set collects the complete concertos of Einojuhani Rautavaara. While these 12 works may not make the best argument for the Finnish post-modernist's status as a great composer – his eight symphonies surely make good that claim – they certainly make the best argument for his status as an amazingly effective, astoundingly diverse, and wonderfully individualistic composer. The works themselves are all from Rautavaara's wide-ranging maturity.

Like fellow Finn Jean Sibelius, Einojuhani Rautavaara (b. 1928) creates gorgeous music indebted to nature–works that ebb and flow rather than crescendo. But that's where the comparison ends. Rautavaara's works continue to grow and evolve, evoking spirituality, Impressionism, and nonclassical elements; the culmination of which can all be found on the Vladimir Ashkenazy-commissioned Gift of Dreams". From its atmospheric opening to the pounding, bluesy chords that follow, Rautavaara has created something truly original here. A Rhapsody in Blue for the 21st century? You decide. Conducting from the piano, Ashkenazy leads the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra through this and Autumn Gardens, a short symphonic work evoking the melancholy beauty of fall and its many colors. This is a very special disc, the premier of two truly great works that you'll be hearing about for a very long time. Essential.

Good music for the harp doesn't exactly grow on trees, and it would be small compliment to say that of all concertos for harp and orchestra, this one is the finest (…). The performance here makes the strongest possible case for this masterpiece, which deserves the widest possible circulation in concert. Ondine's Rautavaara series has revealed to music lovers one marvelous work after another, and with each new release Rautavaara's stature as one of the greatest composers working today only increases.

This CD features one of the most frequently performed Finnish orchestral works of all time, Cantus Arcticus - Concerto for Birds and Orchestra by Einojuhani Rautavaara, which is coupled with Symphonies Nos. 4 and 5. This release is the second volume in a cycle featuring the complete symphonies by Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara. The recordings were made in Leipzig in 1989/1990, with the Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra led by its then Chief Conductor Max Pommer, and originally released in July 1990.

Following his Alpha recording of sonatas by Prokofiev, Ravel and Strauss, the violinist Tobias Feldmann now turns to the concerto form, performing the two major works of the Finnish repertoire for the instrument: the violin concertos of Jean Sibelius and Einojuhani Rautavaara. Premiered in Helsinki in 1904, the Sibelius Concerto proved to be exceptionally difficult technically for the soloist. Sibelius revised his score, but subsequently composed for violin and orchestra only in shorter forms, the serenade and the humoresque. It was not until nearly seventy years later that a Finnish composer wrote another large-scale work for violin and orchestra, with the Concerto of Rautavaara, which in all respects equals the degree of virtuosity demanded by the earlier work.

The Czech Bohuslav Martinů and the Finn Einojuhani Rautavaara may not seem to have much in common, but both have adopted an attitude free of musical puritanism, constantly finding new sources of inspiration which they explored without taboos. Explaining the heterogeneity of his musical language over the years, Rautavaara stated that, as a Finn, he stands ‘between East and West, between the tundra and Europe, between Lutheran and Orthodox faith’. Premiered in 1999, his Piano Concerto No. 3 has managed to join the small group of late twentieth-century concertos that are now part of the repertoire. Its subtitle, ‘Gift of Dreams’, seems to describe perfectly the character of the music in the first two movements, before a finale that exhibits a more driven, anxious manner.