Einojuhani Rautavaara

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The young composer in the 1950s

Einojuhani Rautavaara  [ ˈɛi̯nɔjuhɑni ˈrɑu̯tɑvɑːrɑ ] (born October 9, 1928 in Helsinki ; † July 27, 2016 ibid) was a Finnish composer who was best known for his symphonic works. He was considered one of the most important contemporary Finnish composers. Please click to listen!Play

Life

Rautavaara was the son of an opera singer and came into contact with music from birth. Both parents died early, the boy was raised by an aunt. He studied piano in Turku and, after graduating from high school in Helsinki, musicology and composition with Aarre Merikanto at the Sibelius Academy . Jean Sibelius awarded Rautavaara a scholarship in 1955, which the Koussevitsky Foundation had awarded to 90-year-old Sibelius. Rautavaara was able to study at the Juilliard School of Music in New York with Vincent Persichetti and at the Tanglewood Music Center with Roger Sessions and Aaron Copland . He graduated in 1957, followed by a private study of twelve-tone technique with Wladimir Vogel in Ascona .

After various activities as a teacher at the Sibelius Academy, as a librarian and archivist with the Philharmonic Orchestra in Helsinki and as rector at the Käpylä Music Institute in Helsinki, he was appointed professor of composition at the Sibelius Academy in 1976 and worked there until 1990. For his As a composer, he has received numerous national and international awards and prizes, including the Wihuri Sibelius Prize and the “Pro Finlandia” medal.

plant

Rautavaara in 2003

The Harenberg composers lexicon calls Rautavaara “a complex and contradicting phenomenon”. Rautavaara began neoclassically in the 1950s as the successor to Anton Bruckner , composed serially in the 1960s, and struck neo-romantic notes in his first piano concerto in 1969. A number of pieces from the 1970s, especially Cantus Arcticus , the famous concerto for orchestra and band recordings of bird calls, appear mystical . Since the 1980s, Rautavaara has combined postmodern all styles of music that he has mastered. He combined the series method of the twelve-tone technique with three-tone elements.

Rautavaara traced the romantic-mystical side of his work back to two childhood experiences: a frequent dream in which, like the biblical forefather Jacob , he fought with an angel, and a Greek-Orthodox episcopal ordination, which he attended with his parents. The theme of the angel, which is often dealt with in his works, has its origin in his preoccupation with the Duinese elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke , whose “First Elegy” he also set to music for eight-part mixed choir. Rautavaara assumed that his compositions already exist in "another reality" and that it was his job to bring them from one world to the other: "I firmly believe that compositions have a will of their own."

Rautavaara was best known for his symphonic works and his concerts, but was next to Aulis Sallinen also the most productive Finnish opera composer of the present. Most of the time he wrote his libretti himself and used mystical-romantic themes in their and his instrumental works: in Thomas his monastery experience, in Vincent the artist drama Vincent van Gogh , in Das Sonnenhaus cult of the past and near death, in Aleksis Kivi another artist drama, that of the first in Finnish poet modern writer, Aleksis Kivi . His last opera was about the charismatic character Rasputin .

Works (selection)

Orchestral works

Symphonies

  • 1955/1998/2003: Symphony No. 1
  • 1957: Symphony No. 2
  • 1961: Symphony No. 3
  • 1962: Symphony No. 4 Arabescata
  • 1985: Symphony No. 5 Monologues of Angels
  • 1992: Symphony No. 6 Vincentiana
  • 1994: Symphony No. 7 Angel of Light
  • 2000: Symphony No. 8 The Journey

Works for solo instrument and orchestra

  • 1968: Concerto for violoncello and orchestra No. 1
  • 1969: Piano Concerto No. 1
  • 1972: Cantus Arcticus , "Concerto for Birds and Orchestra"
  • 1972/2008: Summer Thoughts for violin and orchestra
  • 1973: Flute concert Dances with the Winds
  • 1977: Violin Concerto
  • 1977: Concert for organ, brass quintet and symphonic wind orchestra Annunciatons
  • 1980: Angel of Dusk double bass concert
  • 1989: Piano Concerto No. 2
  • 1998: Piano Concerto No. 3 Gift of Dreams
  • 2000: Concerto for harp and orchestra
  • 2001: Concerto for clarinet and orchestra
  • 2008: Concerto for percussion and orchestra Incantations
  • 2008/09: Concerto for violoncello and orchestra No. 2 Towards the Horizon

Further orchestral works

  • 1971: Garden of Spaces (Tilatarha)
  • 1971: True and False Unicorn
  • 1978: Angels and Visitations
  • 1995: Isle of Bliss , Orchestral fantasia
  • 1997: Adagio Celeste (string orchestra)
  • 1999: Autumn Gardens
  • 2003/2005: Book of Visions (1st movement: A Tale of Night , 2nd movement: A Tale of Fire , 3rd movement: A Tale of Love , 4th movement: A Tale of Fate )
  • 2005: Before the Icons
  • 2007: A Tapestry of Life
  • 2011: Into the Heart of Light (string orchestra)

Operas

  • 1962: Kaivos (The Mine)
  • 1985: Thomas
  • 1987: Vincent
  • 1990: Auringon talo (The Sun House )
  • 1997: Aleksis Kivi
  • 2003: Rasputin

Choral works

  • 1960: Ludus verbalis (for male speaking choir)
  • 1960: Lapsimessu (children's fair ) for mixed children's choir and chamber orchestra
  • 1971/72: Vigilia "All-Night Vigil in Memory of St. John the Baptist" for mixed choir and five soloists
  • 1973: Suite de Lorca for mixed choir a cappella
  • 1982: The Myth of Sampo (Sammon ryöstö) for male choir, solos and tape, based on texts from the epic Kalevala : Cantos 42, 43 (Libretto: Einojuhani Rautavaara)
  • 1993: The First Elegy (Rilke) for mixed choir
  • 2011: Missa a cappella

Chamber music

  • 1952: String Quartet No. 1
  • 1958: String Quartet No. 2
  • 1970/2006: April Lines for violin and piano
  • 1975: String Quartet No. 4
  • 1981: Playgrounds for Angels (4 trumpets, 4 trombones, horn, tuba)
  • 1997: String quintet Les cieux inconnues
  • 2005: Lost Landscapes , for violin and piano (1st movement: Tanglewood, 2nd movement Ascona, 3rd movement: Rainergasse 11, Vienna, 4th movement: West 23rd Street, NY)

Piano works

  • 1952: Pelimannit (minstrels / fiddlers) op.1 (6-movement suite for piano)
  • 1956: Icons op.6 (6-movement suite for piano)
  • 1969: Piano Sonata No. 1 Christ and the Fishermen (original title in German)
  • 1969: Etydit (Études) op. 42 for piano
  • 1970: Piano Sonata No. 2 The Fire Sermon

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Obituary (Finnish), accessed on July 28, 2016
  2. ↑ Harenberg composers lexicon. Mannheim 2004, p. 749.
  3. ↑ Rautavaara on Virtual Finland ( Memento from May 26, 2007 in the Internet Archive )

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Rautavaara, Einojuhani
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Finnish composer
DATE OF BIRTH October 9, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Helsinki
DATE OF DEATH July 27, 2016
Place of death Helsinki