RAUTAVAARA.:The Eight Symphonies – National Orchestra of Belgium/ Leipzig RSO/ Helsinki PO/ Conductors (respectively): Mikko Franck, Max Pommer, Leif Segerstam – Ondine ODE 1145-2Q (4 CDs), about 4 hrs. [Distr. by Universal] *****:
Einojuhani Rautavaara, along with Aulis Sallinen, Kalevi Aho, and Kaija Saariaho, is one of Finland’s preeminent composers. This is the only collection of his collected symphonies, and it’s a good one. The first four are divided from the last four by more than twenty years. The First Symphony sounds like a marriage of Mahler and Sibelius, which is to be expected for a callow first foray (although he did rework it in the Eighties). The Second is more adventurous and features lively Stravinskyian tempo and intimations of an ominous parallel world. He dips deeply into the dodecaphonic stream in the Third Symphony, but plunges, naked and shivering, into serialism for his Fourth. Interesting story: He withdrew the original version of the Fourth and substituted a reworked, wild modernistic piece called Arabescata. Not widely played–it froze his symphonic output for two decades—it has its charms. For example, it’s so theatrically shocking it veers into quaintness like an early cubist landscape.
Rautavaara’s Fifth Symphony is a free-flowing narrative in one movement, filled with rich texture and color. Perhaps more than any other of his symphonies, the piece shows his clever use of crescendo and diminuendo. This results in quick changes in the piece’s dramatic structure. The Sixth Symphony (“Vincentiana”) was written for an entirely different purpose: it is a symphonic reworking of his opera Vincent, about the painter Vincent Van Gogh. You’d expect the various movements to be tableaux that musically illustrate museum paintings, like Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. In a way, it is. The first movement, with its tremolo strings and bold percussion, evokes “Starry Night” for me, but not just the painting—the image of Van Gogh is working on it too. The music, while lush, is like a romantic soundtrack at times. Still, I’d like to see the DVD version of the opera. (Ondine has released it only on CD.) The last two symphonies are by far the most highly developed and complex. Their melodies are airborne, and while the symphonies’ structures sound logical, their themes are both spontaneous and confident. This is a fine set for all those interested in the quirky climate of Scandinavian music.
TrackList:
CD 1 [49:04]
Symphony No. 1
Symphony No. 2
CD 2 [49:09]
Symphony No. 3
Symphony No. 4 Arabescata
CD 3 [73:43]
Symphony No. 5
Symphony No. 6 Vincentiana
CD 4 [67:10]
Symphony No. 7 Angel of Light
Symphony No. 8 The Journey
— Peter Bates
