Composer: Einojuhani Rautavaara
Orchestra: Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra
Conductor: Leif Segerstam
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Ondine
Catalogue: ODE1090-5
Release: 2008
Size: 210 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Manhattan Trilogy
01. I. Daydreams
02. II. Nightmares
03. III. Dawn
Symphony No. 3
04. I. Langsom, breit, ruhig
05. II. Langsam, doch nich schleppend
06. III. Sehr schnell
07. IV. Bewegt
It has been said that the heroic Third Symphony, written after his student years in 1961, almost sounds like Bruckner. Rautavaara’s own notes in the CD booklet declare that “the four movements breathe in a solemn, Brucknerian swelling – akin to the rhythm of the land and the sea.”
The two Rautavaara works on this SACD are separated by over 40 years. The first, Manhattan Trilogy, was written to commemorate the centennial of the Juilliard School in 2004, and the second, his Symphony No. 3, was written in 1961, just a few years after the composer’s time as a student there. The composer describes Manhattan Trilogy, with movements titled “Daydreams,” “Nightmares,” and “Dawn,” both as an evocation of the city as he remembered it from his student days and as a meditation on the moods of a young artist embarking on a creative journey. It has a largely serene, lyrical, and untroubled tone (even its nightmares hold few real terrors), and its mellow optimism is clearly a mature artist’s somewhat nostalgic (and rose-tinted) meditation on the pleasant excitement of living in a new environment at the beginning of what would become a fully successful and productive career. The Symphony No. 3 is surprisingly similar in idiom to the more recent piece. Rautavaara has moved through a variety of stylistic phases, but the Romanticism that characterized his very early works has been on the ascendant, and has shaped the pieces from the last few decades that have established his international popularity. He describes his third symphony as Brucknerian, and even its movements have Brucknerian German descriptions, but Rautavaara’s worldview is a great deal sunnier than the Austrian master’s; this is an extremely optimistic piece, with more exuberance than the Manhattan Trilogy. These may not be Rautavaara’s most substantial works, but they are radiantly orchestrated and should have broad appeal with general concert audiences. Leif Segerstam leads the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra in luminous performances, and the sound is clear and natural.