article appeared in Music Finland
http://www.fmq.fi/2016/09/rautavaaras-death-leaves-a-huge-void-in-finnish-contemporary-music/Rautavaara’s death leaves a huge void in Finnish contemporary music
BY Kalevi Aho
My first meeting with Einojuhani Rautavaara (9 Oct 1928–27 Jul 2016): in September 1968, I arrive for my first lesson as a timid composition student. Rautavaara looks through the works I wrote while at school, passes a favourable comment or two, but then declares that I should work my way out of traditional tonality. Thus, we begin to explore the techniques of modern music and modern harmony. Towards the end of my first year, I begin to write an orchestral piece. Rautavaara looks at it and says: this is turning into a symphony, isn’t it? So that was the title sorted. I completed my First Symphony during my summer holiday in 1969.
My last meeting with Einojuhani was in late December 2015, after the funeral of composer Jouni Kaipainen. Esa-Pekka Salonen also attended the funeral, and I suggested to him that we should go see Einojuhani together. Esa-Pekka had also studied with Rautavaara but had not had contact with him for a couple of decades. Einojuhani was physically fragile, but his mind was as sharp as ever, and his eyes retained the familiar keenly exploring and at times mischievous gaze. We spent a thoroughly enjoyable two hours at his home on Katajanokka in Helsinki.
When Einojuhani suffered an aortic rupture in 2004, he spent months in intensive care hovering on the threshold of death. He later explained that he simply could not die yet, because he was still needed and because of his wife Sini. Having recovered, he no longer dared travel abroad, and the sphere of his life became considerably narrower. After this episode, he took a calm view of death, observing simply that it was an option always to be considered, with Death constantly hovering over his shoulder, as it were.
Composer
Einojuhani Rautavaara stressed on many occasions that his feeling was that his compositions pre-existed in a kind of abstract Platonic world of ideas. He viewed the composer’s task as that of a midwife, bringing the compositions cautiously into the world without damaging them at birth.
His first successes, the piano suite Pelimannit (Fiddlers, 1952) and the brass band work A Requiem in Our Time (1953), are good examples of pieces that came out just right in every way. Of A Requiem, Rautavaara said that when writing it he had absolutely no experience of writing for brass band and that his composition technique was immature at the time anyway; yet the completed work has integrity and quality and is exactly as it wanted to be born.
There is thus a mystical, metaphysical dimension to Rautavaara’s output. He was not a religious man as such, but he took a keen interest in the myths underlying religions and ancient folk traditions. Rautavaara’s All-Night Vigil (1971) is the most extensive Orthodox liturgical work written in Finland, yet Rautavaara was not himself a member of the Orthodox Church. The piano cycle Ikonit (Icons, 1955) stemmed from a childhood visit to Valamo Monastery. His “angel works” – the orchestral work Angels and Visitations (1978), the double bass concerto Angel of Dusk (1980/1993) and the frequently performed Seventh Symphony, Angel of Light (1994) – refer to Christian mythology without the composer himself necessarily believing in angels.
Rautavaara explored ancient Finnish mythology and how it succumbed to Christianity in a trilogy of works for the stage comprising Marjatta, matala neiti (Marjatta, Lowly Maiden, 1975) for children’s choir, soloists and instruments, Runo 42 “Sammon ryöstö” (The Myth of Sampo, 1974/1982) for male choir, soloists and tape, and Thomas (1985), a full-length opera that is one of Rautavaara’s finest works. Rautavaara wrote seven full-length operas, all except one to librettos written by himself, an approach to the genre reminiscent of that of Wagner.
Another important aspect of Rautavaara’s composer persona, particularly when he was younger, was the capacity for being curious, experimental and playful. This blends very well with mythology, most idiosyncratically in works like True & False Unicorn for soloists, choir and orchestra (1971/2000).
Sometimes the birth process of a composition was less than successful. Rautavaara revisited many of his works to rewrite and adapt new versions after long periods of time, and he also removed several works from his catalogue, banning them from public performance.
At our final meeting, Einojuhani remarked that he had already discovered in the sounds of his inner world all the musical material that he wanted to use. In light of this, it is understandable that he recycled material from earlier works, particularly towards the end of his career. For me, the culmination of his late period is the cantata Balada (2014), a Lorca setting whose vocal solo part contains an anguished passion that was quite new for Rautavaara.